This paper studies the minimum wages' impact in the Peruvian economy through causality tests with time series available. It finds that minimum wages have lost all importance in the labor market both in a "populist" government (1985-1990), and in a "market-friendly" administration (1990-1993). The second case is not surprising at all, because it is consistent with the "laissez-faire" ideology in the current administration. The first result, on the contrary, is an ironical and contradictory one with the income redistribution goals aimed by former President García.

The author analyzes tire contributions of the four National Living Standards Surveys (ENNIV) to the political, economic and social policy research and design in Peru over the last decade. He also lists the principal lines to be pursued in tracking living standards in the future based on these surveys and on the assumption that there will now be a greater availability of material and human resources for this purpose.

The paper illustrates the pro-cyclical behavior of strikes in the Peruvian private sector with the number of strikes rising with economic growth and falling in periods when the economy is in recession. In the first scenario, workers can bargain for higher wage levels without fear of losing their jobs. In the second, the contrary happens. The paper finds that the frequency of strike activity depends on the changes in labor law. lndeed, the drastic changes introduced in the labor legislation in 1992 brought a reduction in the number of strikes in all phases of the economical cycle. An important result is the reduction in the elasticity of the number of strikes as a response to legal changes affecting the labor market. Technically, there is a variation in both coefficients of the estimated regression, intercept and parameter. lf labor reform had not been introduced in 1992, the number of s...

This paper assesses the feasibility of Peru achieving the first MDG with respect to the eradication of hunger: specifically, halving the deficit of calorie intake by the population of Peru. To evaluate this possibility, a panel model for the period 2001-2005 is estimated and its coefficients are used as inputs in order to run simulations up to the year 2015. The main conclusion of this analysis is that the achievement of the goal, based solely on economic variables such as income growth or its radical redistribution, is barely feasible. The simulation scenarios clearly reveal the multidimensional nature of the problem of calorie deficits. The most cost-effective scenario for halving hunger over the next ten years in Peru would involve a 7% annual growth rate for the economy, the achievement of the education and sanitation millennium goals, and the investment of 44 to 66 million dollars a...

Two out of every three jobs in Peru are generated in the self-employment and household microenterprises. This study uses the «Self-employment Income» module in non-agricultural household enterprises in the Peruvian National Household Surveys, between 2002 and 2006, and estimates an array of empirical models aimed at explaining differences in levels and growth rates of real incomes in these endeavours. There is a set of robust results from complementary methodologies. First of all, labour experience and educational attainment of the entrepreneur have positive impacts on real income. Likewise, business legal registration and functioning in a fixed location are also important factors for the sustainability of the microenterprises over time.

In the last decade, access to higher education in Peru has increased substantially. On the other hand, the proportion of children and adolescents with adequate knowledge to their grade, reflected in learning tests, remains low and has made little progress. What has happened then with the skills of entrants to higher education? This research uses information of a novel survey that measures skills of several generations, and a difference-in-differences evaluation methodology to show some evidence of deterioration in the average level of cognitive skills of higher education students admitted in the past decade. The lower average level of selectivity in the system has helped this process, as access to private universities has gained preponderance. These results reveal that the lower skills of the last generations of students are one of the reasons for the deterioration of the quality of the ...

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El estudio parte por un breve planteamiento del problema que se aborda, es decir, se atiende a la pregunta acerca de la necesidad de hacer una propuesta que permita evaluar la pertinencia de los programas de educación superior universitaria. Responder esta pregunta requiere tener presente dos cosas: en primer lugar, la necesidad de entender a la pertinencia como un atributo central de cualquier oferta formativa que no puede ser vista como un “adicional” o un “deseable” sino como un elemento que define el valor de dicha propuesta. De hecho, si uno sigue a la UNESCO (2007), la pertinencia es una dimensión de la calidad de los sistemas educativos en tanto se vincula de modo directo con la posibilidad de asegurar elementos clave, como los identificados por Tomasevski (2001). En segundo lugar, existe un elemento práctico insoslayable en la política educativa: es materialmente impo...