The subject-matter of this article lies at the crossroads between the literature on technological change and that on industrial dynamics. The analysis centers on the links between the form of accumulation of technical know-how in an industry and the likelihood that the innovation in question can become a vehicle for the entry of new enterprises into the sector. The studies on the developed countries tackle this matter through two approaches: that of technological regimes and that based on the life-cycle of industry. Both these concepts are of an evolutionary nature and are set forth in section…
This article analyses the process whereby domestic violence in Chile became a subject of open discussion and a public issue included in the institutional agenda of the Executive and the Legislature, giving rise to preventive programmes against such violence and public services for aiding its victims, together with the adoption of a law against intra-family violence in 1994. The analysis highlights the dynamic and complex nature of the process, whose course and results were not and could not be determined a priori. Public issues do not exist in their own right, as purely objective phenomena, bu…
Summary
Capital flows returned to the Latin American in the 1990s after nearly a decade-long of the so-called debt crisis that featured a negative transfer of resources. These new capital flows were closely related to the economic reform process in the region. On the one hand, the reforms were a source of attraction for foreign investors. On the other hand, they helped the reforms succeed by relieving the external constraint that depressed growth during the 1980s.
Nevertheless, the new inflows also created problems. While average inflows in the 1990s were very similar to the amounts received b…
Executive Summary This paper reviews trade policy regimes in CARICOM countries during the 1980s and 1990s. CARICOM trade policy regimes have undergone substantial changes in the 1990s reflecting the desire of the grouP's member countries to move away from inwardlooking to more outward-oriented growth and development. The growing recognition of the importance of export promotion policies led to the adoption of a programme for the Harmonization of Fiscal Incentives to Industry in 1993. All the CARICOM countries have introduced a series of export promotion measures, including fiscal incentiv…
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…
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…
Abstract The Chilean experience with price-based capital account regulations (i.e., deposits or reserve requirements on capital inflows) has been subject to extensive discussion in the recent literature. This paper presents evidence on the effectiveness of similar regulations in Colombia since September 1993, when traditional exchange controls were replaced by price-based regulations. It is important to emphasize that the Tobin tax equivalent of such regulations in Colombia has been quite high (13.6% and 6.4% tax for 12 and 36 months loans, respectively, in 1994-1998), and, as in Chile, it is …
This article analyses the impact of public investment on private investment. Apart from purely ideological aspects, two opposing interpretations may be distinguished with regard to the relationship between these variables. The first is that there is competition between public and private investment, so that the former crowds out the latter. The second is that public investment is complementary to private investment in so far that, by generating positive externalities, it creates favourable conditions for the latter. In view of the relative scarcity of empirical studies on this matt…
The Latin American railways faced serious competition from another means of land transport for the first time in the 1930s, and one of the results of this was a significant loss of income from the transport of products of relatively high unit value. This income had covered their fixed costs in terms of management and infrastructure. The financial difficulties of the railway companies drove them to seek aid from the State sector, but in subsequent decades governments gradually lost interest in them because of their financial deficits and dwindling importance in the national economy. The service…
This article contends that the rapid development of Latin America and the Caribbean --a region rich in natural resources-- will depend on how fast it learns to industrialize and process its natural resources and to develop the necessary input suppliers, engineering services and equipment for this. Consequently, this will not be a form of development based on the mere extraction of natural resources, as at present, but rather one based on the processing of such resources and the development of the activities that naturally tend to spring up and concentrate around this base (production complexes…
Almost 60% of the biggest non-financial groups in Mexico carry on at least two types of activities in transnational markets. This article describes and analyses the various internationalization paths and strategies of Mexican firms. This drive for internationalization is taking place against the background of an open export-oriented economy and growing integration with the United States and Canada. There are various national and international factors, as well as others specific to the firms themselves, which influence the strategies chosen and their results. This article consists of an introdu…
Abstract During the course of 1997 and 1998, the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) carried out the project Comparative study of development strategies of selected East-Asian and Latin American countries with special reference to trade and industrial policies under the new international trading system . The project was designed to extract from the experiences of both regions the essence of the appropriate public policy in industrial and trade development and to identify its new role and available instruments, in conformity with the post-Uruguay Round trade reg…
Summary The first section sets out the historical background to the features of regional integration in Latin America between 1960 and 1990. The integration style of this region reflected the protected development models of the period, and developed slowly during the years 1960-1980. The period 1980-1990, known as the lost decade in Latin America, is then examined, bringing to light on the one hand the retreat of economic integration in the region and on the other the beginnings of a process of political democratization which was to set the stage for renewed progress towards integration …
The profound transformations undergone by the economies of Latin America and the Caribbean in recent decades have combined with a massive increase in the number of economically active women to produce significant changes in the labour market. Nonetheless, the indicators used to measure and describe this market have remained unchanged, despite the fact, which it is important to bear in mind, that they were designed for circumstances distinct from today's, with different participants and requirements in policy terms.
Although the importance of measuring the share in economic activity accoun…
This article aims to classify and analyze the efforts at structural change made in the Brazilian motor industry between 1990 and 1996, seeking to relate them with the economic policy measures which had most impact on the sector. The study begins by examining the explosive increase in domestic demand for motor vehicles, its determining factors, and its main implications, especially the achievement of efficient scales of production and the initiation of a wave of investments which has been further intensified in the last three years. It goes on to study the increase in the technological dynamism…
Processes of adjustment and restructuring of the production sectors to a new system of macroeconomic incentives are slow, costly and more inefficient than conventional microeconomic theory would lead one to suppose. In this article, the authors explore the process of the restructuring of production of a Chilean metal products and machinery company and the way it gradually modified its operations from the 1970s onwards, adapting them to new macroeconomic and mesoeconomic signals. As is well known, in the last two decades the system off incentives and the regulatory framework for production acti…
Abstract While it is true that human rights violations are committed against men as well as women, their impact clearly differs depending on the sex of the victim. Studies of the subject indicate that all acts of aggression against women exhibit some characteristic or other that provides a basis for their classification as gender-based violence. This means that such violence is directly related to the unequal distribution of power and to the asymmetrical relationships that exist between men and women in our society, which perpetuate the devaluation of women and their subordination to men. What…
The system of currency convertibility has shown that it is effective in overcoming inflation in Argentina, but its capacity for supporting a stable growth process and acting as a monetary and exchange-rate system which does not involve intervention and heavy costs on the part of the State is currently being questioned. The present article deals with this aspect on the basis of an analysis of the 1991-1995 period and identifies some key features of the functioning of the system: its reactions to movements of foreign capital; its interrelations with the domestic banking system; the extent to whi…
The present surge of interest in participative rural development projects based on peasant communities differs from similar past experiences in that it forms part of a broader tendency to decentralize social management, to enhance the role of the beneficiaries of social policies, and to give them a bigger say in their implementation. In order to avoid repeating the failures of past decades in programmes designed to reduce rural poverty, it is necessary to incorporate elements of modern applied anthropology in programmes for the training of extension workers and in the explanatory models of spe…
The Caribbean countries are acutely conscious of their small size, whether judged by one or all of the criteria of land area, population or gross domestic product (GDP);. Paradoxically, this impels them to join a larger trading group for fear that they might otherwise be denied a place in the mainstream of international activity. This article analyses several characteristics of small countries, with particular attention to those that seem especially relevant to the Caribbean. The paper notes that small size does indeed place greater demands on the national leadership as regards appropriate and…