Social information systems and registries of recipients of non-contributory social protection in Latin America in response to COVID-19

The countries of the region implemented a series of short-term measures to mitigate the social, health and economic effects of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic. In the social sphere, these focused on the provision of social protection entitlements in a rapid and timely manner to the population in need of support. The pressure this placed on the response capacity of social information systems and registries of recipients of social protection systems (social registries) meant that countries had to implement various innovations and adopt new ways of identifying the potential population…

Report of the Fourth Meeting of the Presiding Officers of the Regional Conference on Social Development in Latin America and the Caribbean

Post Pandemic Covid-19 Economic Recovery: Enabling Latin America and the Caribbean to better harness e-commerce and digital trade

This report shows that Latin America and the Caribbean faces critical policy challenges going forward. It must accelerate the digital transformation to allow businesses and consumers to adapt to a new normal and leverage pandemic recovery to create stronger economies, and also tackle long-standing barriers to adopting digital technologies and bridging digital divides. These have impeded sustained and equitable economic growth even before the pandemic struck. This crisis should be a wake-up call for governments, the private sector, civil society, and international development partners to come t…

United States economic outlook: 2020 in review and early 2021 developments

The United States economy contracted by 3.5% in 2020 —the worst performance since the Second World War— but is currently expected to grow by an estimated 6.5% in 2021, the fastest pace in three decades. While there is optimism for the growth outlook this year and beyond, uncertainty and risks prevail. The United States economic outlook: 2020 in review and early 2021 developments presents and analyses the developments in the United States economy in 2020 and early 2021, and examines how they could affect financial conditions in Latin America and the Caribbean. The report includes a gender focus…

Final assessment report. Assessment of development account project 16/17 Z: Addressing critical socio-environmental challenges in Latin America and the Caribbean

The Hummingbird Vol. 8 No. 5

Greening small businesses in small States: the case of Barbados

Barbados has embarked on a bold initiative to green its economy and has already made significant progress in some economic sectors (e.g. energy). This study investigates the extent to which small- and medium-sized enterprises (one of the largest segments of economic activity) on the island have adopted green initiatives and the factors that have prompted them to do so. A probit model is estimated using a firm-level database extracted from the Productivity, Technology and Innovation in the Caribbean (PROTEqIN) database maintained by Compete Caribbean. The results suggest that small and medium-s…

Constrained integration in Latin America: analysis based on a twenty-first-century centre-periphery vision

The early twenty-first century in Latin America was characterized by a “pink tide”, in which a reorientation of national policies produced positive social outcomes and changed both the regional order and the role of regional integration in the different countries. Alongside this process, the international economy provided relief from the external constraint, which meant that growth paths were not interrupted by balance-of-payments crises. Nonetheless, the progress made in regional integration falls well short of political intentions. This article posits that major transformations occurring at …

Globalization and national development paths: stylized facts for analysing the Argentine case

This paper uses stylized facts to analyse the production paths and socioeconomic performance of a group of countries over the last few decades, with a view to making a comparative analysis of the Argentine case. Nine countries were selected for this purpose (Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Chile, China, India, Mexico, Norway and the Republic of Korea); and a long-term analysis was performed by constructing indicators that synthesize the production paths and performance of these economies. The paper concludes that two major types of production paths have predominated during this period. The first…

The role of productive and technological capabilities in export dynamics in developing countries

Productive and technological capabilities are major engines of export. But how they affect export behaviour at the microeconomic level is less clear and many questions remain. This paper empirically investigates their role in export dynamics in 40 developing countries. The analysis shows that, within sectors, countries with greater productive capacities have more exporters, and the exporters are larger and charge higher prices for their products. The results also confirm a positive relationship between technological capabilities and diversification: within sectors, exporters in countries with …

CEPAL Review no. 133

The effect of the economic crisis on the labour market for women in Mexico, 1987–2016

The goal of this study is to analyse the impact of the economic crisis in Mexico on the labour market for women. The analysis is carried out using data from the National Urban Employment Survey (ENEU) and the National Survey of Occupation and Employment (ENOE) for 1987–2016 and applying the decomposition of wage differentials technique proposed by Juhn, Murphy and Pierce (1991 and 1993). Key findings include persistent gender wage gaps in the country, albeit with a slight downward trend, explained largely by unobservable factors, with countercyclical patterns.…

Production fragmentation, foreign trade and structural complexity: a comparative analysis of Brazil and Mexico

Starting in the 1980s, Brazil and Mexico adopted diverging trade and production strategies, which had significant effects on their respective production and trade structures. This study investigates how the two countries’ different patterns of trade specialization affected the complexity of their respective production structures between 1995 and 2011. Although the foreign trade profiles of Brazil and Mexico differ mainly in their export structures, the processes of trade liberalization and integration into global value chains made the network of interrelationships between the different sectors…

Challenges for optimizing social protection programmes and reducing vulnerability in Latin America and the Caribbean

This article provides a reflexive analysis of the design and implementation of social protection systems and anti-poverty programmes in Latin America and the Caribbean. It focuses particularly on the expansion of the conditional cash transfer and non-contributory pension programmes implemented over recent decades. The aim of this study is to distil policy lessons and foster debate on the challenges and opportunities that the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development currently poses for social protection systems. The article argues that more of the same will not be enough to maintain progress and…

Labour productivity and Central American economic integration: the case of El Salvador

This paper seeks to identify the variables that determine labour productivity in El Salvador. The results show that the extreme openness of the Salvadoran economy, combined with the decline in its investment rate since the mid-1990s, have dampened labour productivity growth —as also has happened in other Central American countries. The study also finds that a country’s productivity is positively influenced by the vitality of quality employment and investment in neighbouring countries. This article concludes by advocating the restoration of protection to the subregion’s production sectors, the …

Inequality and social polarization in Chilean municipalities

The social inequality associated with the current pattern of income distribution in Chile remains a subject of interest, as much remains to be learned about the trends in this connection in differing contexts. The aim of this study is to analyse the existing degrees of inequality and social polarization at the municipal (comuna) level arising from the current pattern of income distribution in the country. The measurements used for this purpose are autonomous per capita income and total per capita income. Seventy-eight municipalities in five regions of northern, central and southern Chile were …

Why do conditional cash transfer programmes fail to target the poor? The case of urban areas in Mexico

Given the limited financing capacity of developing countries, conditional cash transfer (CCT) programmes are an affordable means of providing a social safety net to vulnerable households. However, compliance with conditionalities may limit participation and increase dropouts, particularly when compliance-related constraints are high and cash incentives are relatively low. This empirical analysis determines how cash transfer amounts affect the probability that participating households will remain in a programme or drop out, looking at the case of Mexico, a developing country that has gradually …

The effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the compilation of consumer price indices

This article belongs to the first issue of ECLAC Statistical Briefings, bimonthly publication on statistical topics, prepared by the Statistics Division of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC).…

Digital technologies for a new future

Fifteen years after the adoption of the first Digital Agenda for Latin America and the Caribbean, the region is facing a new world. Some of the expectations of that time have been fulfilled, but others have not. Growth in digital technologies has been exponential and they are now used worldwide, but this has been accompanied by negative social repercussions. The region has yet to strike the right balance between the benefits and costs of digitization in a more adverse global situation, exacerbated by the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic. This document contributes to discussion o…

Revenue Statistics in Latin America and the Caribbean 1990-2019 / Estadísticas tributarias en América Latina y el Caribe 1990-2019

Revenue Statistics in Latin America and the Caribbean 2021 is a joint publication by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Centre for Tax Policy and Administration, the OECD Development Centre, the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (UN-ECLAC), the Inter-American Center of Tax Administrations (CIAT) and the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), with the support of the European Union Regional Facility for Development in Transition for Latin America and the Caribbean. It presents detailed, internationally comparable data on t…