Economists in Latin America are moving beyond the prevailing ‘macro’ orientation of their research focusing more on questions linked to development and the use and management of the environmental resource base in the region.

For the most part, economic research in Latin America has had a ‘macro’ orientation (e.g., economic growth, monetary and fiscal policy, hyperinflation crisis). This is perfectly understandable because of the macro instability that has affected the entire region for decades and that still remains in many places.

We conducted a survey in the Guangdong province in China to measure happiness among preadolescents and their parents. The objective of this study was to investigate what explains preadolescents’ happiness level and whether their happiness is related to the happiness level of their parents. We do not find any significant relationship with respect to the latter, and the factors that explain the variation in happiness among parents do not explain the variation among children.

The ability to provide public goods is essential for economic and social development, yet there is very limited empirical evidence regarding contributions to a real local public good in developing countries. This paper analyzes a field experiment where 200 households in rural Vietnam could make real contributions to an archetypical public good, a bridge.