Wages are a key determinant of labor force participation, incomes, and poverty, and are the ultimate indicators of the quality ofjobs in reforming economies.

We exarnine changes in the _whole_ distribution of wages and not just average wage trends. Specifically, we characterize changes in the wage distributions of distinct groups of workers using kernel density estimation and quantile methods. We are especially interested in the evolution of real wages of those "typical" individual males located at the bottom quantiles of the wage distribution, particularly workers who earn wages lower than predicted by their demographic characteristics and observable levels of skills. A focus on "average" wage trends may obscure the particular conditions that affect these men.

One of our main findings indeed suggests that positive wage performance has been mainly concentrated at the higher quantiles of the conditional wage distribution. The dynamics generating wage gains for particular groups or workers employed in the expanding sectors have often eluded workers in the less privileged jobs, that is, those earning wages lower than predicted by measured characteristics. Thus the unobservable heterogeneity that varies across groups of workers (e.g., differences in ability, labor market connections, quality of schooling) affects non-trivially the capacity to adapt to economic restructuring and thus can generate differences in labor market performance. While the analysis does not attempt to establish causal connections with reforms and other parallel changes in these economies, it offers a richer characterization of recent wage trends and pinpoints which groups of men have lost or won. This is of critical importance for the design of equity-enhancing policies and safety nets to protect workers excluded during economic transitions with potential added social benefits in crime and violence reduction.

The paper is organized as follows. Section 2 discusses the choice of countries and time periods, and briefly describes the main economic reforms and economic performance of each country. Section 3 describes the methodology and the data. Section 4 characterizes overall trends in male labor market outcomes, specifically trends and patterns of male employment, unemployment and real wages. Section 5 discusses quantile wage regression results. Section 6 concludes and suggests some policy implications.

# **2. Background: Reforms and Economic Performance**

Although structural reforms have dominated policymaking in virtually all economies in the region since the mid-1980s, there are important differences in the intensity, pace and degree of success. We focus on the experiences of Argentina, Brazil and Costa Rica to study intramale economic marginalization.<sup>2</sup> As in most of the region, policy reform in these three countries has aimed to stabilize and provide a long-term solution to macroeconomic crises characterized by historically high rates of inflation, fiscal and trade deficits and economic decay. Nevertheless, they illustrate some of the

> 2 The original design also included Colombia to attempt exploring indigenous issues and connections to violence, and the Dominican Republic to illustrate a Caribbean experience. Unfortunately, we could not obtain the relevant labor survey data timely.

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