MANUEL VANEGAS SR - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Papers by MANUEL VANEGAS SR

Research paper thumbnail of Poverty and Inequality Dynamics: Measuring Dampening and IGTI in Three CAFTA-DR Countries

JDE (Journal of Developing Economies), Jun 4, 2024

This article examines the relationships between extreme poverty, economic growth, and inequality,... more This article examines the relationships between extreme poverty, economic growth, and inequality, assesses if changes in inequality dampen the impact of income on extreme poverty, and determines the magnitude of the inequality growth trade-off index in Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, and Honduras. A country-specific ARDL bound regression was conducted. The findings indicate the presence of direct and indirect dampening impacts of changes in inequality on income growth and extreme poverty reduction. The magnitude of the inequality growth trade-off- index indicates whether to prioritize growth and/or inequality reducing policies. This means that the higher the inequality, as in Honduras, the higher the economic or average income growth rate required to compensate for the increase in inequality to achieve a given level of extreme poverty reduction. Accordingly, there is no one-size-fits-all policy approach to tackling extreme poverty.

Research paper thumbnail of Error Correction Model in Tourism

Research paper thumbnail of Poverty and Inequality Dynamics: Measuring Dampening and IGTI in Three CAFTA-DR Countries

Journal of Developing Economies, 2024

This article examines the relationships between extreme poverty, economic growth, and inequality,... more This article examines the relationships between extreme poverty, economic growth, and inequality, assesses if changes in inequality dampen the impact of income on extreme poverty, and determines the magnitude of the inequality growth trade-off index in Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, and Honduras. A country-specific ARDL bound regression was conducted. The findings indicate the presence of direct and indirect dampening impacts of changes in inequality on income growth and extreme poverty reduction. The magnitude of the inequality growth trade-off- index indicates whether to prioritize growth and/or inequality reducing policies. This means that the higher the inequality, as in Honduras, the higher the economic or average income growth rate required to compensate for the increase in inequality to achieve a given level of extreme poverty reduction. Accordingly, there is no one-size-fits-all policy approach to tackling extreme poverty.

Research paper thumbnail of Error correction model

Research paper thumbnail of An ARDL Approach: How Robust Is Guatemala's International Tourism Demand?

Tourism Review International, Jul 18, 2017

An autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) bounds testing to cointegration was used to test the rob... more An autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) bounds testing to cointegration was used to test the robustness of Guatemala's tourism demand from Canada, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, and the US. A robustness check was conducted on income, price, and travel cost variables. The magnitudes of the estimated income elasticity values differ from 1.41 (Panama) to 4.86 (Nicaragua). It is a greater luxury for Canada, Costa Rica, Mexico, Nicaragua, and the US than tourists from El Salvador, Honduras, and Panama. In the long run, a 1% steady growth in income in Canada and El Salvador would lead to an increase in tourist arrivals by 4.33% and 3.28%, respectively, ceteris paribus. Similar results, except for El Salvador and Panama, were found for the price and the cost of travel variables. This findings on the price and cost variables imply that its statistical significance does not depend on the measures used. The results are robust to the inclusion of a composite price or separated price, and exchange rate, price of oil or price of diesel, and related independent variables in the regression. These results can assist in policy formulation and management, strategic marketing, product development, and tourism planning.

Research paper thumbnail of Tourism demand response by residents of Latin American countries

International Journal of Tourism Research, 2009

ABSTRACT A general-to-specific methodology was used to build international tourism demand models ... more ABSTRACT A general-to-specific methodology was used to build international tourism demand models by residents from Argentina, Brazil, Colombia and Venezuela to Aruba. We seek to evaluate demand parameters, especially elasticity values, which were disaggregated on a country-to-country basis. We also aim to learn more about the structure and important variables and investigate the process of adjustment. The study has provided new and compelling evidence that, in the short run, residents in developing countries respond rationally and substantially to economic stimulus. The short-run income elasticity ranges from the low of 1.52 for Venezuela to the high of 2.34 for Argentina. These results indicate that Aruba will benefit differently from income increases in these four Latin American countries. The coefficients of the price variable had the expected negative signs, inelastic in the short-run for all countries but significant at the 5% level for Venezuela only. Any deliberate effort to expand tourist arrivals will require a much larger decline in prices than would be the case in the presence of short-run elastic response. The adjustment elasticity, being less than one, suggests that a period of more than one year is required for Latin American residents to fully adjust their tourism decisions in response to demand shocks. This study would seem to provide some useful information about international tourism demand from developing to developing countries that could form a very good and solid basis for analyses and policy action. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Research paper thumbnail of Evaluation of demand

Annals of Tourism Research, 2000

This study examines international tourism demand to Aruba from the United States. This is the fir... more This study examines international tourism demand to Aruba from the United States. This is the first empirical attempt to estimate the income, price, and exchange rate elasticities on Aruban tourism. An accurate estimate, understanding, and forecasting of the demand based on appropriate analytical methods is important for both the government and private investors. Tourism demand estimates from either the linear

Research paper thumbnail of Error correction model, tourism

Encyclopedia of Tourism, 2015

Research paper thumbnail of Cointegration and Causality between Tourism and Poverty Reduction

Journal of Travel Research, 2008

This study, using cointegration and causality tests, investigates the relationship among tourism ... more This study, using cointegration and causality tests, investigates the relationship among tourism development, economic expansion, and poverty reduction in Nicaragua. The results indicate a long-run stable relationship among the three. The causality tests suggest a one-way Granger causal relation between tourism development and economic expansion, and between tourism and poverty reduction, and a bidirectional causal relation between economic expansion and poverty. The nexus of tourism, economic expansion, and poverty reduction is established in the Nicaraguan economy. This result is supported by testing the sensitivity of the Granger causality test under different lag selections along the optimal lag. The empirical evidence points to the potential economic muscle of tourism to seriously tackle Nicaraguan poverty at scale through helping both Nicaragua's public and private sectors allocate resources to tourism development, resulting in the overall improvement of the economy.

Research paper thumbnail of Co-Integration and Error Correction Estimation to Forecast Tourism in El Salvador

Journal of Travel & Tourism Marketing, 2013

ABSTRACT Using co-integration and error correction models, the objective of this study was to sys... more ABSTRACT Using co-integration and error correction models, the objective of this study was to systematically analyze the factors affecting the international tourism demand for El Salvador. The results indicate that the degree of responsiveness of tourist arrivals to El Salvador due to a change in income is elastic and quite differs from country to country. Residents from Honduras appeared to be less responsive to prices than residents from the other origin countries. The dynamic specification of error correction models further confirms the majority of the results obtained in the co-integration relationships. The findings are useful for private developers and public tourism planners in El Salvador. Marketing of specific tourism attributes could enable El Salvador to gain comparative advantage over its competitors.

Research paper thumbnail of Tourism, Macroeconomics, Growth, and the St. Louis Equation

Tourism Review International

This study tested the following research questions: (a) Is tourism development helping to untangl... more This study tested the following research questions: (a) Is tourism development helping to untangle the exogenous from the endogenous of monetary and fiscal policies behavior? (b) Is tourism development a determinant of economic growth in the presence of the macroeconomic variables? (c) Is there a stable long-run relationship among economic growth, tourism development, monetary, and fiscal policies in Nicaragua? (d) Is there a presence of Granger causality? Using nominal and real values, this study tested the adequacy of the expanded St. Louis equation with three methodologies: the Almon lag-distributed methodology; the autoregressive distributed lag bounds testing approach to cointegration; and the Granger methodology was applied to investigate causality. The data covered the period 1960–2016. First, the results have indicated that tourism development and monetary policy bear the task of the short-run adjustment to a long-run equilibrium. In the long-run, a 1% of sustained growth ra...

Research paper thumbnail of Economic Adjustment, Agriculture and the Labor Market in Uganda

This paper investigates the scale of the economic crisis in Uganda and the impacts on agriculture... more This paper investigates the scale of the economic crisis in Uganda and the impacts on agriculture, identifies the major labour market changes and explores selected policy measures to attack on rural-urban unemployment. Section II, starts from the scale of the crisis and the need to adjust the Ugandan economy to overcome the resurgence of unemployment. In Section III, the costs

Research paper thumbnail of Box-Cox estimation of Intenational Tourism demand for Nicaragua

Research paper thumbnail of Evaluación de la demanda de turistas: turistas estadounidenses en Aruba

Annals of Tourism Research En Espanol, 2000

Research paper thumbnail of Tourism, Economic Expansion and Poverty in Nicaragua: Investigating Cointegration and Causal Relations

Replaced with revised version of paper 09/10/07.

Research paper thumbnail of Tourism and poverty reduction: an economic sector analysis for Costa Rica and Nicaragua

Tourism Economics, 2015

This study examines the existence of a long-run relationship between indigence or extreme poverty... more This study examines the existence of a long-run relationship between indigence or extreme poverty reduction and agricultural, manufacturing and tourism development in Costa Rica and Nicaragua. An econometric methodology consisting of an autoregressive distributed lag bounds testing approach to co-integration is used. For Costa Rica, agricultural and manufacturing (not statistically significant) and tourism development are negatively related to indigence poverty with estimated elasticity values of −0.50 for agriculture, −0.17 for manufacturing and −0.58 for tourism. For Nicaragua, the estimated elasticity values are −0.40 for agriculture, −0.13 for manufacturing (not statistically significant) and −0.64 for tourism. Tourism's rate of poverty reduction was statistically significantly greater than that of agriculture for both countries. The main contribution of this paper lies in the understanding of sector contributions to alleviating poverty. The methods utilized can be undertake...

Research paper thumbnail of Box-cox Estimation of International Tourism Demand for Nicaragua

Tourism Analysis, 2010

The objective of this research was to estimate with linear, log-linear, and Box-Cox specification... more The objective of this research was to estimate with linear, log-linear, and Box-Cox specifications of Nicaragua tourism exports to the developing countries of Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and the developed country of the US. Using Zellner's seemingly unrelated regression procedure, estimates from the three approaches are compared to address: functional form selection; structure and influencing factors, such as income, relative prices, and travel costs; and identification of demand parameters, in particular elasticity values. The corresponding short-run income elasticity values range from a low of 1.5 for Costa Rica to a high of 2.21 for El Salvador with an average of 1.88. The results attest to the strength of the income effect in increasing tourist arrivals and that Nicaragua will benefit differently from income increases in the origin countries. The coefficients of the price variables have the hypothesized negative signs for all 15 countries. The short-run pri...

Research paper thumbnail of What Does Dynamics of Tourism Marketing Show in 12 Developing Countries?

Journal of Developing Economies

This study is motivated by the idea to what extent tourism marketing investment contributes to to... more This study is motivated by the idea to what extent tourism marketing investment contributes to tourism demand expansion. It searches for better estimation methods that can deal with the inter-temporal and cross-section correlation of the disturbances. The effect of omitting the tourism marketing variable, as evidenced by the drastic change in long and short-run elasticity values for all tourism demand models, has emerged clearly. There is a need for the national tourism institutions to have a clear, consistent, and sustained investment policy in tourism marketing activities with respect to enhanced effectiveness in allocating financial resources.Keywords: Tourism Marketing, 12 Developing Countries, Dynamic Panel, Elasticity Values, Omission of Tourism Marketing Variable.JEL: Z33, C23,O50

Research paper thumbnail of Poverty Elimination Through Tourism Dynamics

Handbook of Tourism and Quality-of-Life Research, 2011

Research paper thumbnail of The triangle of poverty, economic growth, and inequality in Central America: does tourism matter?

Worldwide Hospitality and Tourism Themes, 2014

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate the link between tourism, economic growth, ... more Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate the link between tourism, economic growth, inequality, and poverty reduction in the five countries of Central America (Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua). Design/methodology/approach – The study represents the first application of panel data modeling of poverty, economic growth and inequality as related to Central America. Unbalanced panel data are employed for the five Central America countries for the period 1980-2012. Findings – The findings reveal three results: the relationship between poverty, inequality and economic growth varies relatively very little for different measures of economic growth; the null hypothesis that economic growth and inequality does not matter is rejected at the 1 percent level, and the coefficients are highly significant and with the expected signs; tourism matters for poverty reduction in Central America. Originality/value – The paper represents the first application of pan...

Research paper thumbnail of Poverty and Inequality Dynamics: Measuring Dampening and IGTI in Three CAFTA-DR Countries

JDE (Journal of Developing Economies), Jun 4, 2024

This article examines the relationships between extreme poverty, economic growth, and inequality,... more This article examines the relationships between extreme poverty, economic growth, and inequality, assesses if changes in inequality dampen the impact of income on extreme poverty, and determines the magnitude of the inequality growth trade-off index in Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, and Honduras. A country-specific ARDL bound regression was conducted. The findings indicate the presence of direct and indirect dampening impacts of changes in inequality on income growth and extreme poverty reduction. The magnitude of the inequality growth trade-off- index indicates whether to prioritize growth and/or inequality reducing policies. This means that the higher the inequality, as in Honduras, the higher the economic or average income growth rate required to compensate for the increase in inequality to achieve a given level of extreme poverty reduction. Accordingly, there is no one-size-fits-all policy approach to tackling extreme poverty.

Research paper thumbnail of Error Correction Model in Tourism

Research paper thumbnail of Poverty and Inequality Dynamics: Measuring Dampening and IGTI in Three CAFTA-DR Countries

Journal of Developing Economies, 2024

This article examines the relationships between extreme poverty, economic growth, and inequality,... more This article examines the relationships between extreme poverty, economic growth, and inequality, assesses if changes in inequality dampen the impact of income on extreme poverty, and determines the magnitude of the inequality growth trade-off index in Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, and Honduras. A country-specific ARDL bound regression was conducted. The findings indicate the presence of direct and indirect dampening impacts of changes in inequality on income growth and extreme poverty reduction. The magnitude of the inequality growth trade-off- index indicates whether to prioritize growth and/or inequality reducing policies. This means that the higher the inequality, as in Honduras, the higher the economic or average income growth rate required to compensate for the increase in inequality to achieve a given level of extreme poverty reduction. Accordingly, there is no one-size-fits-all policy approach to tackling extreme poverty.

Research paper thumbnail of Error correction model

Research paper thumbnail of An ARDL Approach: How Robust Is Guatemala's International Tourism Demand?

Tourism Review International, Jul 18, 2017

An autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) bounds testing to cointegration was used to test the rob... more An autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) bounds testing to cointegration was used to test the robustness of Guatemala's tourism demand from Canada, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, and the US. A robustness check was conducted on income, price, and travel cost variables. The magnitudes of the estimated income elasticity values differ from 1.41 (Panama) to 4.86 (Nicaragua). It is a greater luxury for Canada, Costa Rica, Mexico, Nicaragua, and the US than tourists from El Salvador, Honduras, and Panama. In the long run, a 1% steady growth in income in Canada and El Salvador would lead to an increase in tourist arrivals by 4.33% and 3.28%, respectively, ceteris paribus. Similar results, except for El Salvador and Panama, were found for the price and the cost of travel variables. This findings on the price and cost variables imply that its statistical significance does not depend on the measures used. The results are robust to the inclusion of a composite price or separated price, and exchange rate, price of oil or price of diesel, and related independent variables in the regression. These results can assist in policy formulation and management, strategic marketing, product development, and tourism planning.

Research paper thumbnail of Tourism demand response by residents of Latin American countries

International Journal of Tourism Research, 2009

ABSTRACT A general-to-specific methodology was used to build international tourism demand models ... more ABSTRACT A general-to-specific methodology was used to build international tourism demand models by residents from Argentina, Brazil, Colombia and Venezuela to Aruba. We seek to evaluate demand parameters, especially elasticity values, which were disaggregated on a country-to-country basis. We also aim to learn more about the structure and important variables and investigate the process of adjustment. The study has provided new and compelling evidence that, in the short run, residents in developing countries respond rationally and substantially to economic stimulus. The short-run income elasticity ranges from the low of 1.52 for Venezuela to the high of 2.34 for Argentina. These results indicate that Aruba will benefit differently from income increases in these four Latin American countries. The coefficients of the price variable had the expected negative signs, inelastic in the short-run for all countries but significant at the 5% level for Venezuela only. Any deliberate effort to expand tourist arrivals will require a much larger decline in prices than would be the case in the presence of short-run elastic response. The adjustment elasticity, being less than one, suggests that a period of more than one year is required for Latin American residents to fully adjust their tourism decisions in response to demand shocks. This study would seem to provide some useful information about international tourism demand from developing to developing countries that could form a very good and solid basis for analyses and policy action. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Research paper thumbnail of Evaluation of demand

Annals of Tourism Research, 2000

This study examines international tourism demand to Aruba from the United States. This is the fir... more This study examines international tourism demand to Aruba from the United States. This is the first empirical attempt to estimate the income, price, and exchange rate elasticities on Aruban tourism. An accurate estimate, understanding, and forecasting of the demand based on appropriate analytical methods is important for both the government and private investors. Tourism demand estimates from either the linear

Research paper thumbnail of Error correction model, tourism

Encyclopedia of Tourism, 2015

Research paper thumbnail of Cointegration and Causality between Tourism and Poverty Reduction

Journal of Travel Research, 2008

This study, using cointegration and causality tests, investigates the relationship among tourism ... more This study, using cointegration and causality tests, investigates the relationship among tourism development, economic expansion, and poverty reduction in Nicaragua. The results indicate a long-run stable relationship among the three. The causality tests suggest a one-way Granger causal relation between tourism development and economic expansion, and between tourism and poverty reduction, and a bidirectional causal relation between economic expansion and poverty. The nexus of tourism, economic expansion, and poverty reduction is established in the Nicaraguan economy. This result is supported by testing the sensitivity of the Granger causality test under different lag selections along the optimal lag. The empirical evidence points to the potential economic muscle of tourism to seriously tackle Nicaraguan poverty at scale through helping both Nicaragua's public and private sectors allocate resources to tourism development, resulting in the overall improvement of the economy.

Research paper thumbnail of Co-Integration and Error Correction Estimation to Forecast Tourism in El Salvador

Journal of Travel & Tourism Marketing, 2013

ABSTRACT Using co-integration and error correction models, the objective of this study was to sys... more ABSTRACT Using co-integration and error correction models, the objective of this study was to systematically analyze the factors affecting the international tourism demand for El Salvador. The results indicate that the degree of responsiveness of tourist arrivals to El Salvador due to a change in income is elastic and quite differs from country to country. Residents from Honduras appeared to be less responsive to prices than residents from the other origin countries. The dynamic specification of error correction models further confirms the majority of the results obtained in the co-integration relationships. The findings are useful for private developers and public tourism planners in El Salvador. Marketing of specific tourism attributes could enable El Salvador to gain comparative advantage over its competitors.

Research paper thumbnail of Tourism, Macroeconomics, Growth, and the St. Louis Equation

Tourism Review International

This study tested the following research questions: (a) Is tourism development helping to untangl... more This study tested the following research questions: (a) Is tourism development helping to untangle the exogenous from the endogenous of monetary and fiscal policies behavior? (b) Is tourism development a determinant of economic growth in the presence of the macroeconomic variables? (c) Is there a stable long-run relationship among economic growth, tourism development, monetary, and fiscal policies in Nicaragua? (d) Is there a presence of Granger causality? Using nominal and real values, this study tested the adequacy of the expanded St. Louis equation with three methodologies: the Almon lag-distributed methodology; the autoregressive distributed lag bounds testing approach to cointegration; and the Granger methodology was applied to investigate causality. The data covered the period 1960–2016. First, the results have indicated that tourism development and monetary policy bear the task of the short-run adjustment to a long-run equilibrium. In the long-run, a 1% of sustained growth ra...

Research paper thumbnail of Economic Adjustment, Agriculture and the Labor Market in Uganda

This paper investigates the scale of the economic crisis in Uganda and the impacts on agriculture... more This paper investigates the scale of the economic crisis in Uganda and the impacts on agriculture, identifies the major labour market changes and explores selected policy measures to attack on rural-urban unemployment. Section II, starts from the scale of the crisis and the need to adjust the Ugandan economy to overcome the resurgence of unemployment. In Section III, the costs

Research paper thumbnail of Box-Cox estimation of Intenational Tourism demand for Nicaragua

Research paper thumbnail of Evaluación de la demanda de turistas: turistas estadounidenses en Aruba

Annals of Tourism Research En Espanol, 2000

Research paper thumbnail of Tourism, Economic Expansion and Poverty in Nicaragua: Investigating Cointegration and Causal Relations

Replaced with revised version of paper 09/10/07.

Research paper thumbnail of Tourism and poverty reduction: an economic sector analysis for Costa Rica and Nicaragua

Tourism Economics, 2015

This study examines the existence of a long-run relationship between indigence or extreme poverty... more This study examines the existence of a long-run relationship between indigence or extreme poverty reduction and agricultural, manufacturing and tourism development in Costa Rica and Nicaragua. An econometric methodology consisting of an autoregressive distributed lag bounds testing approach to co-integration is used. For Costa Rica, agricultural and manufacturing (not statistically significant) and tourism development are negatively related to indigence poverty with estimated elasticity values of −0.50 for agriculture, −0.17 for manufacturing and −0.58 for tourism. For Nicaragua, the estimated elasticity values are −0.40 for agriculture, −0.13 for manufacturing (not statistically significant) and −0.64 for tourism. Tourism's rate of poverty reduction was statistically significantly greater than that of agriculture for both countries. The main contribution of this paper lies in the understanding of sector contributions to alleviating poverty. The methods utilized can be undertake...

Research paper thumbnail of Box-cox Estimation of International Tourism Demand for Nicaragua

Tourism Analysis, 2010

The objective of this research was to estimate with linear, log-linear, and Box-Cox specification... more The objective of this research was to estimate with linear, log-linear, and Box-Cox specifications of Nicaragua tourism exports to the developing countries of Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and the developed country of the US. Using Zellner's seemingly unrelated regression procedure, estimates from the three approaches are compared to address: functional form selection; structure and influencing factors, such as income, relative prices, and travel costs; and identification of demand parameters, in particular elasticity values. The corresponding short-run income elasticity values range from a low of 1.5 for Costa Rica to a high of 2.21 for El Salvador with an average of 1.88. The results attest to the strength of the income effect in increasing tourist arrivals and that Nicaragua will benefit differently from income increases in the origin countries. The coefficients of the price variables have the hypothesized negative signs for all 15 countries. The short-run pri...

Research paper thumbnail of What Does Dynamics of Tourism Marketing Show in 12 Developing Countries?

Journal of Developing Economies

This study is motivated by the idea to what extent tourism marketing investment contributes to to... more This study is motivated by the idea to what extent tourism marketing investment contributes to tourism demand expansion. It searches for better estimation methods that can deal with the inter-temporal and cross-section correlation of the disturbances. The effect of omitting the tourism marketing variable, as evidenced by the drastic change in long and short-run elasticity values for all tourism demand models, has emerged clearly. There is a need for the national tourism institutions to have a clear, consistent, and sustained investment policy in tourism marketing activities with respect to enhanced effectiveness in allocating financial resources.Keywords: Tourism Marketing, 12 Developing Countries, Dynamic Panel, Elasticity Values, Omission of Tourism Marketing Variable.JEL: Z33, C23,O50

Research paper thumbnail of Poverty Elimination Through Tourism Dynamics

Handbook of Tourism and Quality-of-Life Research, 2011

Research paper thumbnail of The triangle of poverty, economic growth, and inequality in Central America: does tourism matter?

Worldwide Hospitality and Tourism Themes, 2014

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate the link between tourism, economic growth, ... more Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate the link between tourism, economic growth, inequality, and poverty reduction in the five countries of Central America (Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua). Design/methodology/approach – The study represents the first application of panel data modeling of poverty, economic growth and inequality as related to Central America. Unbalanced panel data are employed for the five Central America countries for the period 1980-2012. Findings – The findings reveal three results: the relationship between poverty, inequality and economic growth varies relatively very little for different measures of economic growth; the null hypothesis that economic growth and inequality does not matter is rejected at the 1 percent level, and the coefficients are highly significant and with the expected signs; tourism matters for poverty reduction in Central America. Originality/value – The paper represents the first application of pan...