Impact of the peace negotiations in Colombia on real GDP, 2013–2019

The peace negotiations between the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia –People’s Army and the Government of Colombia, which began in late 2012 and concluded with the signing of the Final Agreement for Ending the Conflict and Building a Stable and Lasting Peace in 2016, sought to bring an end to decades of violence, loss of life, destruction of infrastructure and social fragmentation. This study uses the synthetic control method proposed by Abadie and Gardeazabal (2003) and Abadie, Diamond and Hainmueller (2010) to assess the impact of the Agreement on Colombia’s real per capita GDP growth, …

Latin America and the Caribbean looking ahead to the Second World Summit for Social Development: proposals for inclusive social development

The overarching objectives of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development —ending poverty and hunger and reducing inequality— are long-held priorities of the region and particularly salient in the work of the Regional Conference on Social Development in Latin America and the Caribbean. The region’s countries have cooperated to achieve these objectives since the establishment of the Regional Conference as a subsidiary body of the Economic and Social Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) in 2014. The Regional Agenda for Inclusive Social Development, adopted by the Regional Confe…

The influence of fiscal solvency on financial development: evidence for 140 countries, 1990–2020

If financial development facilitates economic development at the international level, as is the consensus view, then it follows that each government’s task is to implement policies that effectively boost national financial development. This study tests the new hypothesis that a more fiscally solvent policy approach positively influences financial development. The results, based on a yearly comparison, show that fiscal solvency, approximated by the credit rating on sovereign debt denominated in local currency, affects three dimensions of financial development: (i) the depth of credit leveraging…

Book review essay. The World That Latin America Created: the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America in the Development Era, by Margarita Fajardo

This book review essay analyses and builds on the work of Margarita Fajardo on the history of the establishment of the Economic Commission for Latin America (ECLAC) and the growth and decline of its influence in the region and around the world in the two decades following its founding.…

Economic growth and productive sectors: recent empirical data on middle-income countries

This article examines how structural change affected economic growth in middle-income developing countries between 1960 and 2019, especially in Brazil (between 1948 and 2020), using the vector autoregression (VAR) model and panel data. The VAR model suggests that structural change in Brazil resulted in the services sector having a greater impact on economic growth owing to the transfer of resources from high-productivity sectors to low-productivity sectors, which reduced the rate of economic growth. Panel data suggest that economic growth in the sample of countries continues to be heavily infl…

On the measurement of growth over the long run

Methodologies for the construction of nominal and real gross domestic product (GDP) time series often differ over time and between countries. This paper discusses the main issues raised by this methodological heterogeneity for long-run measures of economic growth and, informed by these issues, provides a set of internationally comparable GDP estimates from 1820 to 2020. The estimates are based on real product benchmarks relative to the United Kingdom as the reference economy. The GDP time series of the reference economy is a normalized composite of several indices. These estimates suggest that…

CEPAL Review No. 145

Empirical evidence for Okun’s law in Colombia: an analysis of rural areas at the region level

This article analyses the relationship between income and unemployment, controlling for the variable of human capital, in rural areas of four Colombian regions. The objective is to test for the existence of the empirical regularity known as Okun’s law and thereby measure income’s impact on unemployment by region. The analysis is based on a monthly series for the period 2010–2022, and the methodologies used to determine the behaviour of this relationship include ordinary least square differences, dynamic ordinary least squares, and error correction and vector autoregressive models, establishing…

The road to the 2025 Second World Summit for Social Development: towards a pact for inclusive social development

Since the establishment of the United Nations, various intergovernmental agreements and international human rights instruments have expressed the ambition of achieving social development, which is central to the multilateral system. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (United Nations, 1948) stressed the importance of well-being and, implicitly, of improved quality of life, both of which are linked to the rights to social security, work, an adequate standard of living, education and health. The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (United Nations, 1966) broadened…

Long-term effects of real exchange rate volatility and institutional quality on economic complexity

This article analyses whether real exchange rate volatility and institutional quality, combined as conditioning variables of the productive specialization of economies, can have a negative impact on a country’s ability to achieve greater economic sophistication, especially in countries with a commodity-dominated and natural resource-based export basket. The methodology used consists of panel cointegration estimation (pooled mean group) using data from 1995 to 2018 for a sample of 54 countries. The results indicate that real exchange rate volatility is indeed an obstacle to the implementation o…

Provisional agenda. Twenty-fourth meeting of the Executive Committee of the Statistical Conference of the Americas of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean

Annotated provisional agenda. Twenty-fourth meeting of the Executive Committee of the Statistical Conference of the Americas of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean

Latin America and the Caribbean in the Final Five Years of the 2030 Agenda: Steering Transformations to Accelerate Progress. Summary

Five years from the deadline for achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in Latin America and the Caribbean, progress has fallen short of expectations a decade ago when the journey began. Many factors have impeded better progress: weak institutional capacities, limited financing and fiscal space, low growth for major trading partners, the shock of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic and subsequent cascading crises. In 2025, these factors have been compounded by geopolitical tensions and disruptions that may pose new obstacles for achievement of the SDGs, as well as new…

Main results of the 2021 cycle of the International Comparison Programme for Latin America and the Caribbean

This study presents the main results of the 2021 cycle of the International Comparison Programme (ICP) for Latin America and the Caribbean. It also includes an overview of the concepts and methods underlying the estimation of purchasing power parities (PPPs) and real expenditure.…

Latin America and the Caribbean looking ahead to the Second World Summit for Social Development: Proposals for Inclusive Social Development. Draft document prepared by the Presiding Officers of the Regional Conference on Social Development in Latin...

Territorialization of the Sustainable Development Goals in Latin America and the Caribbean: a manual for implementation of voluntary local reviews at the subnational level

Just six years away from the date set for the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals established in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, an unprecedented level of concerted action is called for. All stakeholders will have to strengthen their resolve to find and put in place lasting solutions. Although the Sustainable Development Goals are global in scope, their achievement will hinge on the ability to make their attainment a reality at the subnational, local and territorial levels, including individual towns, cities and regions. The purpose of this manual is to share lessons…

Overcoming Development Traps in Latin America and the Caribbean in the Digital Age: The Transformative Potential of Digital Technologies and Artificial Intelligence

Latin America and the Caribbean is affected by three major structural traps or challenges that are holding back its development: low capacity for growth, high inequality and low social mobility, and low institutional capacity and ineffective governance. These challenges are deeply interconnected and feed back into each other, and the result is a vicious circle of productive stagnation, social exclusion and institutional fragility. However, digital transformation and the use of new technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) offer a unique opportunity to break this cycle. This document ex…

Action for equality, development and peace in Latin America and the Caribbean: regional report on the review of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, 30 years on, in synergy with the implementation of the Regional Gender Agenda

The present document, prepared by the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), is based on 25 reports prepared by countries and territories in Latin America and the Caribbean, which in turn are based on comprehensive national 30-year reviews of the implementation of the Beijing Platform for Action (Beijing+30), adopted at the Fourth World Conference on Women, in synergy with the implementation of the Regional Gender Agenda deriving from the commitments made at the meetings of the Regional Conference on Women in Latin America and the Caribbean. The document incorporates …

Annotated provisional agenda. Eighth meeting of the Forum of the Countries of Latin America and the Caribbean on Sustainable Development

Provisional agenda. Eighth meeting of the Forum of the Countries of Latin America and the Caribbean on Sustainable Development