Summary Competition policy has become an important topic in the context of the global trade and capital liberalization processes of the past decade. The average tariff rate on imports has decreased substantially and various non-tariff restrictions have been abolished. Barriers to trade erected by private parties have hardly been tackled, however, although these business practices can distort trade and investment flows and lead to conflicts between countries. Competition policy deals with anti-competitive business practices (sometimes called restrictive business practices). Competition laws wer…
Abstract Both in Asia Pacific and Latin America, considerable confusion and ambiguity surround the notion of 'open Regionalism' that question its relevance for practical purposes. Chapter I will examine various interpretations and applications of the concept and study under what circumstances the two elements 'open' and 'regionalism' come into contradiction. The chapter first put to provide some precision on the relationship that may exist between Open Regionalism and regional integration, and then it inquires of under what conditions regionalism can be a 'st…
Summary
The relationship between trade and economic growth is nuclear to the literature of economic development. Due to the importance of the external sector to developing countries, most development models have trade regimes and the related system of incentives as central determinants of economic performance. Also, there exists an extensive empirical literature on exports and growth with mixed results. Many studies find evidence of association between exports or exports growth and economic growth although the direction of the causality has not yet been clearly established. Moreover, other stu…
Abstract
The growing participation of developing countries in multilateral trade liberalization, as well as the boom of free trade agreements that grant exclusive preferences to its members, are both closely related to what has been denominated as 'open regionalism'. Additionally, this regionalism is associated with a process of 'deep integration' that transcends free trade issues.
The concepts of 'deep regionalism' and 'open regionalism' do not have a precise definition and rather refer to a range of strategic decisions which governments might resort to…
(Primer párrafo del Capítulo I) A partir de agosto de 1990, con el inicio de la primera administración del Presidente Alberto Fujimori, la política económica aplicada en el Perú, y el modelo de desarrollo que había imperado desde el inicio de la década de los sesentas, experimentaron un cambio radical. El modelo de desarrollo basado en la industrialización por sustitución de importaciones (ISI) fue abandonado, a la vez que se pusieron en práctica, de manera paralela, un duro programa de estabilización macroeconómica y un acelerado proceso de reformas estructurales. En este contexto, se elimina…
Resumen
Este documento se centra en el impacto de las reformas del marco regulatorio minero implantadas a partir de los años noventa sobre la dinámica de las inversiones y la estructura productiva del sector. Debido al escaso desarrollo histórico de la minería argentina, el estudio se ha focalizado en los nuevos emprendimientos mineros, y en particular se analiza el caso de Bajo de la Alumbrera.
El estudio muestra que el sector ha iniciado un proceso de profunda transformación que depende casi exclusivamente de la inversión extranjera directa y se sustenta en la gran minería metalífera orienta…
Introducción Este documento se centra en el análisis de la inversión realizada por las Empresas Maquiladoras de Exportación (EME) en la década de los noventa, reconociendo que el motor de crecimiento de este sector ha sido el elevado grado de desregulación con el que estas empresas han operado desde su aparición a mediados de la década de los sesenta hasta nuestros días. El ciclo de expansión de las EME ha pasado por dos periodos. El primero, va de 1964 a 1973, durante el cual se constituye y crece erráticamente manteniendo un peso poco significativo en la actividad industrial del país. El seg…
El presente número de la Serie Información y Desarrollo reúne tres textos preparados por el mismo autor, a través de sus observaciones y experiencias con diferentes organizaciones atendidas por la CEPAL en temas de información.
Los textos se han dispuesto en un secuencia que considera algunos problemas de la gestión del conocimiento que se plantean a actores que atienden misiones de crecientes grados de complejidad funcional.
El primero examina, genéricamente, a la biblioteca como una de las organizaciones asociadas a la gestión del conocimiento y su posicionamiento (o, más propiam…
Resumen Este trabajo analiza el comportamiento de los actores económicos y políticos que exhibieron un mayor protagonismo en el desarrollo de la crisis energética chilena entre noviembre de 1998 y de junio de 1999. Este mayor protagonismo significó la mayoría de las veces que las apreciaciones sobre la crisis eléctrica se articularan en un análisis de la cuota de responsabilidad individual de los actores que son identificados por el resto de la sociedad como administradores del negocio de la generación eléctrica —directores y ejecutivos de las empresas generadoras— y de su regulación conforme …
Resumen Durante medio siglo los gobiernos han operado los puertos estatales como entes sociopolíticos, haciendo caso omiso a las señales del mercado. Al no responder a éstas, los gobiernos han tenido que subvencionar los puertos, aceptar que las operaciones fueran lentas y costosas, renunciar a la introducción de tecnologías que reducen la demanda de estibadores, permitir a los sindicatos monopolizar el manejo y estiba de la carga, y negociar acuerdos colectivos que institucionalizan las prácticas ineficientes. Hoy, en cambio, los servicios portuarios deben regirse por criterios comer…
This article analyses the reduction of labour costs as a factor which helps to raise the competitiveness of industrial enterprises. It first reviews non-wage labour costs, both for workers with permanent contracts and those with only temporary contracts, or with no contracts at all, in order to show the differences that exist in non-wage labour costs according to the type of contract of the workers or their unregistered status, and the impact of these differences on the labour costs for each type of worker and the average labour costs. It then goes on to consider the evolution of labour costs …
This article analyses the systems of worker participation in company profits or operating results applied in Latin America and their capacity to meet the needs of the economic context in which companies operate. After an introduction (section I);, a brief outline of variable wage systems is presented and the main features of the participation systems used in four Latin American countries (Chile, Mexico, Peru and Venezuela); are described (section II);. The characteristics of these systems are then compared with each other and with those of the system adopted in Brazil since 1994 (section III);…
Social capital means the set of norms, institutions and organizations that promote trust and cooperation among persons in communities and also in wider society. In those formulations of the social capital paradigm (and of the neoinstitutional economics on which they are partly based); which focus on its collective manifestations, it is claimed that stable relationships based on trust and cooperation can reduce transaction costs, produce public goods and facilitate the constitution of social actors and even of sound civil societies. Community social capital is a particular form of social capita…
This article presents a methodological and empirical approach to the measurement of technological maturity in a process industry, such as petrochemicals, at the international level. The main conclusion is that the degree of technological maturity determined in the exercise may vary, depending on the indicator used for measuring the life cycle of the industry. This finding is very important because the conventional indicators of market dynamism or production do not always reflect the degree of technological maturity of an industry or sector. Since technology is a decisive factor in the degree o…
The reforms made in the early 1980s profoundly changed the structure and functioning of the health sector in Chile in both the private and the public subsectors. In spite of the considerable advances made since 1990, however, the public-private configuration resulting from those reforms has not allowed the shortcomings in terms of resource allocation and the access of the population to health services to be overcome. A proposal for reform of the sector should be aimed at developing mechanisms to raise the efficiency and efficacy of the resources allocated to it, as well as incorporating and im…
Road maintenance work has gradually been increasing in Latin America. Existing contracts in Argentina, Chile, Guatemala and Uruguay - 210 overall - account for a total of 20,212 kilometers of public roadways by level of service. In Brazil, Ecuador and Peru, 26 contracts are now in the pipeline for the maintenance of 7,700 kilometres of roadway. This issue of the FAL Bulletin presents a survey of the status of road maintenance considered at the second Seminar of the Americas of the Road Maintenance Training Programme (Provial), held in Lima, Peru from 18 to 21 October 1999 and which examined t…
En América Latina se viene registrando un gradual auge en materia de conservación vial. Entre Argentina, Chile, Guatemala y Uruguay, se encuentran vigentes 210 contratos para el mantenimiento de un total de 20.212 kilómetros de vías públicas por niveles de servicio. En Brasil, Ecuador y Perú, existen 26 contratos en preparación que abarcarán el mantenimiento de 7.700 kilómetros de vías. Esta edición del Boletín presenta un recuento del avance de la conservación vial, analizado en el Segundo Seminario Provial de las Américas, celebrado en Lima, Perú, entre el 18 y el 21 de octubre de 1999, abo…