ative Commons IGO 3.0 Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives (CC-IGO BY-NC-ND 3.0 IGO) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/igo/legalcode) and may be reproduced with attribution to the IDB and for any non-commercial purpose.No derivative work is allowed.Any dispute related to the use of the works of the IDB that cannot be settled amicably shall be submitted to arbitration pursuant to the UNCITRAL rules. The use of the IDB's name for any purpose other than for attribution, and the use of IDB's logo shall be subject to a separate written license agreement between the IDB and the user and is not authorized as part of this CC-IGO license.Note that link provided above includes additional terms and conditions of the license. to the private sector as a reliable partner to boost economic value added and labour growth. However, this expectation has never been grounded in fact, as there is no empirical study of the Caribbean private sector. Therefore, this study is ground-breaking because it provides a comprehensive empirical analysis of the Caribbean business sector.The report revisits the theme of low Caribbean growth, viewed through a macroeconomic lens in our previous report (Is there a Caribbean Sclerosis?), but takes a microeconomic perspective by using firm-level data.The performance of the private sector is crucial for a country's economic growth and employment generation. As such, the results of the analysis are not comforting.In terms of sales growth, employment growth, efficiency, and total factor productivity, the Caribbean underperforms the rest of the small economies of the world. The gap is larger for commodity-dependent economies (Guyana, Suriname, and Trinidad and Tobago) than for tourism-dependent economies (Barbados, Jamaica, and The Bahamas). Thus, the existing Caribbean business sector is not up to the challenge to increase the region's economic growth and employment and hence, to increase public resources and improve the welfare of citizens in the region.Why? The report uses multiple approaches to identify the constraints to the private sector, constraints include the role of firm characteristics and constraints, including international trade and foreign direct investment, financing, crime, inadequate labour, electricity issues, lack of innovation, gender disparity, and government policies that are not good for business. The study estimates the contribution to the performance gap of the region's existing endowments (i.e., the characteristics and constraints of the firms) as well as the returns to those characteristics and constraints. It finds that the returns contribute more to the gap than do characteristics and constraints themselves.It turns out that fine-tuning the engine that is the private sector, as it were, will take more than an oil change. The Caribbean private sector is falling behind because vi AN ENGINE OF GROWTH? THE CARIBBEAN PRIVATE SECTOR NEEDS MORE THAN AN OIL CHANGEits policy environment hinders rather than promotes dynamic, innovative, and export-oriented b...

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In today's knowledge-based societies, understanding basic scientific concepts and the capacity to structure and solve scientific questions is more critical than ever. Accordingly, in this paper we test an innovative methodology for teaching science and environment in public primary schools where traditional (teacher centred) teaching was replaced with student centred activities using LEGO kits. We document positive and significant improvements of 0.18 standard deviations in standardised test scores. Such positive results are mainly concentrated within boys that were located above the median of baseline academic performance.

Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. The opinions expressed in this publication are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Inter-American Development Bank, its Board of Directors, or the countries they represent. Terms of use: Documents inThe unauthorized commercial use of Bank documents is prohibited and may be punishable under the Bank's policies and/or applicable laws.Copyright © Inter-American Development Bank. This working paper may be reproduced for any non-commercial purpose. It may also be reproduced in any academic journal indexed by the American Economic Association's EconLit, with previous consent by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), provided that the IDB is credited and that the author(s) receive no income from the publication. AbstractWe identify whether remittances facilitate consumption smoothing during health shocks in Jamaica. In addition, we investigate whether remittances are subject to moral hazard by receivers, how the informal insurance provided by remittances interacts with formal health insurance, and whether there are differential effects by gender of the household head. We find that remittances offer complete insurance toward decreased consumption during health shocks and that moral hazard is weak. The role of remittances as a social insurance mechanism, however, is relevant only in the absence of private health insurance. No differential effects by gender of the household head are found. JEL classifications: F24, I13, O15

work is licensed under a Creative Commons IGO 3.0 AttributionNonCommercial-NoDerivatives (CC-IGO BY-NC-ND 3.0 IGO) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/igo/ legalcode) and may be reproduced with attribution to the IDB and for any non-commercial purpose, as provided below. No derivative work is allowed.Any dispute related to the use of the works of the IDB that cannot be settled amicably shall be submitted to arbitration pursuant to the UNCITRAL rules. The use of the IDB's name for any purpose other than for attribution, and the use of IDB's logo shall be subject to a separate written license agreement between the IDB and the user and is not authorized as part of this CC-IGO license.Following a peer review process, and with previous written consent by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), a revised version of this work may also be reproduced in any academic journal, including those indexed by the American Economic Association's EconLit, provided that the IDB is credited and that the author(s) receive no income from the publication. Therefore, the restriction to receive income from such publication shall only extend to the publication's author(s). With regard to such restriction, in case of any inconsistency between the Creative Commons IGO 3.0 Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license and these statements, the latter shall prevail.Note that link provided above includes additional terms and conditions of the license. I) INTRODUCTIONIn this paper, we explore the relation between adolescents' health risk behaviors and parental engagement in 15 Caribbean and Latin American countries. The relation is examined through logit regressions, and the overall effect is estimated through meta-analysis.Adolescence is a time of many developmental challenges related to identity, autonomy, and sexuality. This period includes experimentation with perceived facets of adulthood. Many adolescents experiment with risk behaviors, such as delinquent, antisocial, and high-risk sexual behaviors. Adolescence is also a period in which these problem behaviors can become established patterns, thereby affecting well-being later in life. During this time, there is also a transformation in the parent-adolescent relationship. This study investigates whether parental engagement can be a significant predictor of risk behaviors of adolescents in Latin America and the Caribbean, as has been indicated in many studies of adolescents in developed countries.Furthermore, we aim to investigate any related differences between the Caribbean and Latin American countries.This paper has five sections. Section I introduces the paper. Section II presents a brief literature review on the adolescent-parent relationship and its influence on adolescent health risk behaviors. In section III, we describe the data, variables of interest, and research methods. In section IV, we present the results, and we end with a discussion of the findings in section V. II) ADOLESCENT HEALTH RISK BEHAVIORS: RISK AND PROTECTION FACTORS