The import-substitution strategy was entirely justified in the 1930s and continued to make sense until the late 1950s, so long as export opportunities were being dampened by the Great Depression, the Second World War and the reconstruction of Europe. From the 1960s on, however, it afforded diminishing returns as international trade burgeoned. During the 1980s, the macroeconomic instability caused by the debt crisis compounded the problems associated with this development strategy, which had begun to become apparent in the 1970s. Evidence to this effect was provided by the region's declini…
This article highlights the need to complement macroeconomic policies designed to secure stabilization, deregulation and greater openness with other macroeconomic and microeconomic measures aimed at revitalizing the growth and competitiveness of the countries of the region. At the national level, in terms of macroeconomic measures, it is necessary to increase domestic saving and channel it towards productive investments within the local context, while microeconomic policy should include measures to develop and consolidate in the countries an innovative, wide-ranging system for furthering chang…
The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the debate on stabilization policies in conditions of high inflation in the light of the experience of Brazil and some other countries, especially the European monetary crises of the 1920s and the stabilization of the Argentine currency in 1991/1992. The paper begins with some comments on certain special features of situations of high inflation, with emphasis on the unfeasibility of following the sequence of measures recommended for dealing with only moderate imbalances. It goes on to criticise some aspects of the economic policy adopted in Brazil …
The financing of a State's sub-national levels of government, in federal and other systems alike, is an instrument of decentralization; first, each State has to decide what area of responsibility to assign to each governmental level and then it must design a suitable financing mechanism. If these sub-national governments' degrees of fiscal and administrative autonomy are not kept in alignment, then eventually the initiative may fail as the bodies at these levels gradually lose decision-making power within their sphere of responsibility. It is unlikely that sub-national levels of gove…
Concern about the international migration of skilled human resources has traditionally focused on migratory flows to industrialized countries, i.e., about what has come to be known as the brain drain . There are, however, migratory movements of this segment of the labour force within the region as well. This horizontal migration is analysed briefly in the present article; in so doing, the author reviews its causes, possible implications, the characteristics of these flows of skilled migrants, and the relationship between what is to be observed in some countries and the o…
The poverty and weakness of Central America, combined with its potential strategic importance in world politics, have made this region extremely vulnerable to external intellectual and political influences. The result of these influences has been national political processes guided by European notions of Conservatism, Liberalism and Socialism, and a social sciences tradition that is trapped in the intellectual ethos of its mid-nineteenth century European precursors. This article argues that the Eurocentric theoretical orientation dominating Central American social sciences ignores the fact tha…
Sociology's contribution to our understanding of the Latin American development process has been closely linked to studies on the social structure and stratification of the region and to analyses and interpretations of the various social groups' characters and behaviour. This investigative effort has been directed towards ascertaining the specific forms taken by the structure of social groups and classes in the regi n, since it had been postulated that these traits -which are an inherent part of Latin America- were determinants of the patterns which the development process would foll…
This article provides an overview of a number of changes that have taken place in the region's economy, together with their effects in terms of its social stratification, and analyses the different social sectors' options for political action. A series of economic changes have altered both the traditional heterogeneity of the Latin American economy and the relative weight of its various sectors; this is reflected, for example, 9n the heightened importance of agribusiness and the reciprocal penetration of the services and production sectors. Today a generic distinction between i…
En el primer capítulo se presentan algunas digresiones teórico-metodológicas
en relación a los indicadores e hipótesis propuestos. En el segundo capítulo, se
presentan los resultados de un análisis comparativo de las características
personales de los empresarios de PYMES metalmecánicas entrevistados en Rosario,
vinculándolos con las trayectorias evolutivas de sus firmas.
Finalmente se plantean algunas reflexiones generales, a modo de conclusión y en
un apéndice se incluyen los cuadros estadísticos que sustentan este trabajo.…
El presente Boletín Demográfico tiene por objeto actualizar la información sobre fecundidad publicada en el Boletín Demográfico 41 de enero de 1988. Desde la publicación del Boletín 41 han sido revisadas 14 proyecciones de población en las cuales se incorporan nuevas estimaciones de fecundidad para el período 1950-1990, como también se modifican las hipótesis de evolución para el período 1990-2025…
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