The ongoing reforms of Mexico's judicial system should lead to a more transparent and efficient criminal justice system. An analysis of reforms to date indicates that crime has gone down where enacted, but citizens still don't trust their local police.
Rio de Janeiro has one of the highest youth homicide rates in Brazil, especially among black males. Understanding why Brazilian youth leave gangs, and what policies may discourage their initial entry, may help to reduce the crime and homicide rate.
Understanding how criminal gangs and other non-state actors compete with the state to provide public services, gain popular support, and jeopardize security can help policymakers counter these groups' activities.
The Forest Allowance Program (Programa Bolsa Floresta) is an avoided deforestation initiative in Brazil that pays the local population a monthly allowance for environmental services and increases deforestation monitoring and enforcement. RAND is studying this and similar initiatives to determine their success in reducing deforestation.
Hispanic immigrants constitute a rapidly growing share of the U.S. population but are less likely to be financially literate than natives. RAND researchers are investigating barriers to Hispanic immigrants' use of financial services and evaluates financial education materials for them.
Given the worldwide trend of aging populations, it is important to learn about the long- and short-term effects of non-contributory social security programs. With the State of Yucatan, CLASP designed such a program for towns with more than 20,000 inhabitants. The project team is now evaluating its impact on the welfare of residents ages 70 and older.
The standard model of educational decisions predicts no (or minimal) effects of deferral on educational attainment, but this model may not tell the whole story. A study of those who were not accepted by lottery to a Mexican college shows that labor market effects must also be considered.
Does one's level of education influence one's patience? A study examining the time preferences of students accepted by lottery to a Mexican college, compared to those of individuals who were not accepted, indicates that more educated individuals do tend to be more patient.
To understand what policies and incentives influence the decisionmaking patterns of middle-aged and elderly Mexicans, RAND researchers used panel data from the Mexican Health and Aging Study to compare the retirement behavior of non-migrant Mexicans with those who had migration spells to the United States and later returned to Mexico.
Not enough is known about the economic effects of changing the legal status of undocumented immigrants in the United States. This project estimates the causal effects of legalization to inform future U.S. immigration reform proposals.
Chile, Colombia, and Mexico each have fully-funded, defined-contribution social security systems, yet there are significant differences in system design and incentive that may affect individuals' participation. The research team compared the differences of individual coverage in the three countries' systems.
To inform the current debate on migrant selection, RAND analyzed the composition and migration flows of return migrants from the United States to Mexico from 1993 to 2004, based on data from the EMIF (Encuesta sobre Migración en la Frontera Norte de México).
Mexico introduced personal retirement accounts in 1997, and it is important to understand who have been the winners and losers of this type of pension reform. The research team used social security administrative records to examine the effects of the Mexican pension system reform and model other outcomes.
On varied measures of health, including the prevalence of certain chronic diseases, U.S. Hispanics consistently fare better than non-Hispanic whites. The aim of this research was to examine selective migration in and out of the U.S. as potential explanations for the "Hispanic health paradox."
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