Can Maquila Booms Reduce Poverty? Evidence from Honduras

Rafael De Hoyos, Maurizio Bussolo and Oscar Nunez
Additional contact information
Oscar Nunez: The World Bank, Postal: 1818 H Street, N.W., Washington, DC 20433

No 4789, Policy Research Working Paper Series from The World Bank

Abstract: This paper identifies and estimates the strength of the reduction in poverty linked to improved opportunities for women in the expanding maquila sector. A simulation exercise shows that, at a given point in time, poverty in Honduras would have been 1.5 percentage points higher had the maquila sector not existed. Of this increase in poverty, 0.35 percentage points is attributable to the wage premium paid to maquila workers, 0.1 percentage points to the wage premium received by women in the maquila sector, and 1 percentage point to employment creation. Given that female maquila workers represent only 1.1 percent of the active population in Honduras, this contribution to poverty reduction is significant.

Keywords: Trade liberalization; maquila; poverty; gender wage gap; Honduras (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F16 I32 J24 J31 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 23 pages
Date: 2008-12-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dev, nep-lab and nep-lam
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www-wds.worldbank.org/external/default/WDSC ... ered/PDF/WPS4789.pdf Full text (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:4789

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Policy Research Working Paper Series from The World Bank 1818 H Street, N.W., Washington, DC 20433. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Roula I. Yazigi ().