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La edición 1993 del Anuario estadístico de América Latina y el Caribe contiene una selección actualizada a fines de diciembre de las principales series estadísticas disponibles sobre la evolución económica y social de los países de la región.…
Latin American manufacturing industry has undergone various changes in recent years. It has registered a favourable performance as far as exports are concerned, but production and investment have grown only slowly in a context of sluggish recovery of domestic demand and greater foreign competition. Other features are greater specialization in natural resource-based intermediate goods characterized by the importance of economies of scale, relatively long lead times for the heavy investments required, and the presence of privatized and transnational enterprises. At the same time, there are signs…
Latin American development strategies have historically been inextricably linked with trade theory and policy. The author's main argument is that the old infant industry and the new strategic trade arguments are fundamentally similar. Among their similarities is the justification of selective protection of certain economic sectors. Among their differences, the infant industry argument justifies temporary protection, while the argument in favour of strategic protection of certain industries justifies their protection on an indefinite basis. Yet, in the context of turning inward-oriented in…
The constitution of a new international industrial order dominated by a core of large transnational corporations generally makes life more difficult for the great majority of developing countries because, since most are not in a position to compete effectively, they face still greater marginalization. TNCS more than ever before can significantly influence the international competitiveness and therefore the nature of incorporation of developing countries into the new increasingly integrated international production system. The national origin and form of foreign direct investment and technology…
The large capital inflows into some Latin American countries since 1990 are a mixed blessing, for they widen the trade-off between disinflation at home and competitiveness abroad. A large part of the flows seems to be temporary rather than permanent. Permanent flows should be accommodated by an upward float of the currency, temporary flows by sterilized intervention on the foreign exchange market. Recent evidence suggests that sterilized intervention is more effective and carries lower fiscal costs than is often maintained. Asian policy practice suggests ways of sterilized intervention even wi…
Difficult as it is to forecast the magnitude of the impact of the Single European Market (SEM); on the rest of the world and on the European Community (EC); itself, the predominant feeling is one of concern, especially in the developing countries. This article seeks to determine how the completion of the SEM may affect Latin America's exports to the Community, using basically a short- and medium-term analytical approach. This is because a series of elements make it possible to predict with some confidence that the deepening of Community integration will take more time than originally fore…
Many indigenous leaders and intellectuals in the region are asking themselves how the current rapid spread of free market principles and the process of integration into a single world economy is likely to affect their cultures. The answer depends on what we mean by culture and what we mean by modernity . Cultures are not rigid sets of traditional norms and values, but instead have a deep-seated logic and a whole constellation of alternative processes which, like constantly evolving computer programmes, give each culture considerable flexibility and capacity to adapt to c…
Regional integration has once again become an important issue for Latin America and the Caribbean. Compared with previous experiences, however, recent integration commitments have a number of new aspects in such areas as negotiating procedures, the issues involved in the various agreements -some of which are as unprecedented as the adoption of common currencies, the creation of binational companies, common labour laws, etc.- and the actual timing of these steps. Among the various integration initiatives now being pursued, four are particularly important by virtue of the relative weight of the …
The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the debate on stabilization policies in conditions of high inflation in the light of the experience of Brazil and some other countries, especially the European monetary crises of the 1920s and the stabilization of the Argentine currency in 1991/1992. The paper begins with some comments on certain special features of situations of high inflation, with emphasis on the unfeasibility of following the sequence of measures recommended for dealing with only moderate imbalances. It goes on to criticise some aspects of the economic policy adopted in Brazil …
The renewed interest sparked by the potential for intraregional cooperation in Latin America and the Caribbean today has been reflected in numerous agreements regarding trade preferences and in attempts to establish free trade areas, customs unions or common markets. The possibility has even been discussed of setting up free trade arrangements on a hemispheric scale. This plethora of proposals inevitably raises a great many questions. What is the reason for this renewed interest? Are the differences between the schemes of today and those of the 1960s and 1970s significant enough to avert the o…
The poverty and weakness of Central America, combined with its potential strategic importance in world politics, have made this region extremely vulnerable to external intellectual and political influences. The result of these influences has been national political processes guided by European notions of Conservatism, Liberalism and Socialism, and a social sciences tradition that is trapped in the intellectual ethos of its mid-nineteenth century European precursors. This article argues that the Eurocentric theoretical orientation dominating Central American social sciences ignores the fact tha…