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Abstract .-- Introduction .-- I. Evolution of the social cohesion concept: analytical foundations and related concepts .-- II. Towards a normative approach to social cohesion: historical contextand central elements .-- III. Measuring social cohesion: a proposal for monitoring and policies .-- IV. A policy agenda for social cohesion as part of a new social compact: initial thoughts .-- V. Conclusions.

The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic has triggered an unprecedented worldwide social, economic and health crisis. This emergency has prompted the Latin American and Caribbean countries to deploy a series of social protection measures in an attempt to mitigate its impacts, especially for the most vulnerable population groups. In view of this situation and given the possibility of other crises in the future, the role of social protection systems has become one of fundamental importance, and strategies have to be devised for making those systems universal, comprehensive and sustainable on the basis of an approach that is sensitive to difference. This study looks at a number of the social protection measures implemented by the countries of the region in response to the pandemic and explores different social protection tools that could contribute to a recovery with equality and sustainability.

This Policy Research Brief describes Chile's Ethical Family Income poverty reduction programme, drawing particular attention to its innovations with regard to Chile Solidario as well as its scope, limitations and challenges.

We develop a new approach to identify different categories of depositors during periods of uncertainty and quantify their compensation to remain in the bank. We isolate withdrawals due to liquidity needs, deterioration of fundamentals, and expectation about withdrawal behavior of other depositors. We exploit variation in the cost of withdrawal induced by the maturity expiration of time deposits around unexpected uncertainty events and high-frequency microdata from a large Greek bank. Deposit withdrawals quadrupled in response to a policy uncertainty shock that doubled the short-run credit default swap (CDS) price of Greek sovereign bonds. About two-thirds of this increase is driven by direct exposure to deteriorating fundamentals, and the remainder due to strategic complementarities. We find that depositors need to be offered annualized returns exceeding 50% to remain in the bank during episodes of high uncertainty. Our findings provide new insights into the design of interventions that prevent runs by targeting depositors with the largest propensity to withdraw.

We study the role of scope in financial intermediation. Using new credit registry data on US firms, we show that in the market for small business lending, multi-product banks benefit from economies of scope across products but exploit their market power to steer firms into more profitable, less regulated products. To quantify these forces and the welfare implications of scope, we develop and estimate an equilibrium model of firm credit provision where banks compete with more specialized non-bank financial intermediaries. In counterfactual simulations, we show that market power and bank steering increase prices and reduce welfare for small firms. These losses, however, are less than the gains from cost synergies. We also simulate equilibrium effects of alternative banking regulations. Our results highlight the need for regulation to recognize the multi-product nature of financial intermediaries.