External restrictions, financial integration and income distribution were some of the topics addressed during the second seminar-workshop on productive structure, institutions and economic dynamics held on August 20-21 in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in which government officials and experts participated.
The event began with a regional assessment made by Martín Abeles, Director of the Buenos Aires Office of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), and Sebastián Valdecantos, an expert from the same institution. Following that, a series of academic studies related to the so-called “macroeconomics for development” agenda were presented.
Gabriel Porcile, an Economic Affairs Officer at ECLAC, analyzed the sustainability of different growth models and their interaction with the productive structure, emphasizing the fact that external restrictions pose a clear limit to growth and development.
The presentation given by Santiago Capraro, from the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), attempted to offer a more empirical perspective on this problem through an estimation of the Thirlwall Law. Meanwhile, Mario Cimoli, ECLAC’s Director of the Division of Production, Productivity and Management, presented research (based on an evolutionist approach) on the efficacy of real exchange rate depreciations as a tool to increase the export platform.
With respect to income distribution, Luis Reyes, from the Université Paris-Nord, presented an econometric study oriented towards identifying the underlying growth regimes (wage-led, profit-led and export-led) in the region. Afterwards, Juan Martín Graña and Damián Kennedy, from the University of Buenos Aires, examined the long-term dynamics in functional income distribution in Latin America.
Finally, in the segment on financial integration, Pablo Bortz, from the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), spoke of the diverse instruments that exist to regulate cross-border flows, and Esteban Pérez-Caldentey, an Economic Affairs Officer at ECLAC, presented a work in progress that includes the designing of financial flow matrixes for the different countries in the region, with the aim of analyzing Latin America’s external vulnerability.
The event’s closing session was led by Diego Bastourre, from Argentina’s Central Bank, who provided an analysis of commodities markets and capital flows in our continent and the determinants of spreads (the difference between the prices to buy and sell a given financial asset) in the region.
