This article uses international databases to empirically estimate the links between inequality and trade. It looks first at the links between trade openness, income distribution and relative factor abundance. Next, it uses the results obtained to analyse the changing relative resource endowment of Latin America and its distributive consequences. The main conclusion is that, behind the persistent high level of inequality in the region, substantive changes have been taking place. The Latin American pattern of relative resource abundance has changed with the inroads made by Asia, China and Russia…
Latin America is going through a simultaneous process of population ageing and growing predominance of precarious employment conditions which poses a challenge for contributory pension systems. The solvency of the basic pillars of the unfunded system is being affected by the long-standing decline in the number of active persons whose contributions finance the benefits of retirees. The benefits of the individually funded systems are sensitive to the density of contributions needed to accumulate capital and finance pensions for members with increasingly long life expectancies. This study describ…
Over the last quarter-century, the distribution of income in Argentina has deteriorated steadily. This article utilizes microsimulation analysis to decompose the impact that labour changes have had on the distribution of family income. In the 1970s, the deterioration was due to real reduction and relative dispersion of wages; in the1980s, it was linked to growing unemployment resulting from successive crises; in the1990s, under the new economic order, the deterioration continued as a result of the unemployment generated by the restructuring of production and the increase in labour force partic…
This article analyses the way in which Latin American bond spreads were affected by the changes in United States interest rates in the second half of the 1990s. Empirical analysis shows that, contrary to theory, in this period the spreads of emerging market bonds and United States interest rates moved in opposite directions; that there was financial contagion; that contraction of liquidity and financial contagion can offset the effects of those interest rates on the spreads of emerging market bonds at times of economic and financial turbulence and thus become the most important factors in the …
Ten years of infrastructure reform in Latin America can teach us a lot about how to make privatization work for the poor. There are macroeconomic and microeconomic transmission mechanisms through which such reform may affect those sectors. This paper discusses policy instruments to increase their access to services and make the latter more affordable for them. The advantages and disadvantages of each instrument are evaluated and examples are given. The ways in which policy-makers should go about setting social priorities in infrastructure reform and choosing the most appropriate policy instrum…
This article quantifies Brazil's loss of U.S. market share to Mexico between 1992 and 2001 as a result of the entry into force of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA);. An expanded version of the constant market share model was used to calculate gains and losses in the competitiveness of Brazilian exports to the United States, by product and by competitor, for subperiods between 1992 and 2001. The model showed Mexico to be the country to which Brazil lost the most market share in the United States between 1992 and 1996. Exchange rate variations and preferential tariff treatment…
CONTENTS I.European Commission welcomes adoption of Directive on public access to environmental information.II. Adoption of the human right to water.III.Commission asks France, Spain and Italy to respond to queries on environmental complaints.IV. Moscow Mayor Plans to Sell Water to the World.V. New Treaties Relating to the Maas and the Scheldt.VI. Province at risk of EU fines over water.VII. Water Worries: How is a lifetime to be shared in politically turbulent times, while catering to economic interests.VIII.Zimbabwe, Mozambique Set to launch Joint Water Commission.Thestatements and opinions …
En este documento se exponen los principales conflictos regulatorios en materia de competencia que tienden a registrarse con mayor frecuencia en la industria de telecomunicaciones de los países que han procedido a su apertura a agentes económicos privados.
Para los propósitos del análisis, los conflictos regulatorios en materia de competencia que han sido identificados en esta industria han sido agrupados en tres categorías: 1); conflictos que se suscitan por los intentos de aumentar o defender la posición en mercados específicos de la industria de telecomunicaciones; 2); conflictos que se sus…
Distintas aproximaciones conceptuales están conduciendo a la emergencia de lo que podría llamarse un nuevo paradigma del desarrollo territorial. Por la vía de las nuevas teorías sobre el crecimiento, los análisis de la transformación del Estado nacional, los enfoques del neoinstitucionalismo y las perspectivas del desarrollo sostenible, se está llegando a una visión integral del territorio como factor causal del desarrollo.
Los nuevos marcos teóricos inspiran, a su turno, una nueva generación de políticas, mediante las cuales son los propios territorios los que toman la iniciativa de impulsar …
Durante el año 2002 el Banco Mundial y el Instituto Latinoamericano y del Caribe de Planificación Económica y Social - (ILPES), junto con el Instituto para la Democracia y Asistencia Electoral (IDEA), coincidieron en la necesidad de examinar las experiencias de diálogos nacionales e impulsarlos en otros países de la región por cuanto se vislumbraban algunas señales que revelarían un resquebrajamiento de la gobernabilidad. Por otro lado, los organismos financieros multilaterales perciben, como resultado de las experiencias de la década de los noventa, que sería mucho más eficaz la cooperación …
This document contains an analysis of and statistics on the economic performance of the region as a whole and of individual Latin American and Caribbean countries in 2002. It shows a 0.5% decline in regional economic activity, leading to a fall in per capita gross domestic product below 1997 levels and thus completing half a lost decade for the region as a whole. South American economies, particularly Argentina, Uruguay and Venezuela, weighed heavily in the regional aggregate, but the lack of dynamism was widespread throughout the region. An adverse external environment was key …
En esta publicación se hace un análisis de la
evolución de la economía regional en el año 2002, desde una perspectiva
comparativa e individual por países. En él se consigna una caída de 0.5% de la
actividad económica en América Latina y el Caribe, con lo que el producto interno bruto
por habitante se situó por debajo del nivel de 1997 y se completó media década
perdida . El promedio regional estuvo muy influido por la situación de las
economías de América del Sur, especialmente Argentina, Uruguay y Venezuela, pero el bajo
dinamismo fue generalizado en prácticamente toda la región.
U…
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