Commitment to Equity is pleased to announce the availability of two new working papers published this past January. Click the title below to view:
No. 22: Fiscal Policy and Ethno-Racial Inequality in Bolivia, Brazil, Guatemala and Uruguay. By Nora Lustig
No. 27: Public Transfer and Poverty Reduction: An Evaluation of Program Contribution to the Exit Rate from Poverty of Children and the Elderly. By Marisa Bucheli
Commitment to Equity, in conjunction with Tulane University and the Inter-American Dialogue are pleased to announce the availability of the CEQ Policy Assessment on Guatemala (by Maynor Cabrera, Nora Lustig, and Hilcías E. Morán).
Abstract: In 2010, according to the CEQ analysis for Guatemala, fiscal policy did almost nothing to change inequality and poverty. Recent developments on fiscal policy make things worse. A reduction in social spending, particularly in the flagship CCT program “Mi Bono Seguro” will negatively impact poverty and inequality. A reform of the personal income tax will result in lower fiscal revenues. The combined effects of these changes will likely result in an increase of poverty and inequality and reinforce the chronic status quo of poverty and inequality in Guatemala.
Tulane’s School of Liberal Arts featured a piece on Prof. Lustig and the Gates Foundation funding of the Commitment to Equity initiative: “Through the Gates grant, I can support my graduate students and expand the reach of the CEQ project to new limits. I can travel and learn about new places such as Ghana and Tanzania, the two countries the Gates grant is funding,” says Lustig. “I can involve other scholars and benefit from their expertise. I can potentially have much more impact as the grant makes the project better known.” Read the entire article here
Commitment to Equity’s 20th Working Paper “Fiscal Policy, Inequality, and the Ethnic Divide in Guatemala” is now available to download on commitmentoequity.org. Written by Maynor Cabrera (Fedes), Nora Lustig (Tulane University), and Hilcías E. Morán (Bank of Guatemala), the paper uses fiscal incidence analysis to show that takes and transfers do almost nothing to reduce inequality and poverty in Guatemala, one of the most unequal countries in Latin America.
This past Tuesday, September 2nd, Prof. Nora Lustig gave a presentation on the Impact of Fiscal Policy on Inequality and Poverty in Developing Countries. This presentation was part of an ongoing Seminar series at UNAM that focuses on “la cuestión Social”, the theme this week was “Política fiscal, equidad y transparencia”. Prof. Lustig presented recent finding of the Commitment to Equity initiative, with a particular focus on Latin American countries. Click here for a pdf (in spanish) of the presentation.
We are pleased to announce a new Commitment to Equity (CEQ)partnership with the Center for Global Development (CGD). CGD works to reduce global poverty and inequality through rigorous research and active engagement with the policy community to make the world a more prosperous, just, and safe place for us all. CGD’s role as a partner of CEQ will be to share the global reach of their communications platform. Through a new Commitment to Equity sub-topic within their inequality topic, they will post links to CEQ studies as they become available, the CEQ papers that are jointly published with CGD, and occasional blog posts. We look forward to working with CGD and are honored to have it as a CEQ partner.