This document is part of an effort to take inventory of the current state of ICT (Information and Communications Technologies) statistics in Latin American and Caribbean countries, particularly in National Statistic Offices (NSOs). In this study fifteen countries are investigated regarding three sources of information: Internet research, e-mails and phone calls and through the meta-data questionnaire Status of information society statistics in National Statistic Offices, applied to NSOs of Latin America and the Caribbean during August 2004 in the frame of OSILAC. The effort concluded with a wo…
La edición 2004 del Anuario estadístico de América
Latina y el Caribe contiene una selección de las
principales series estadísticas sobre la evolución
económica y social de los países de la región. Representa
un esfuerzo de la División de Estadística y Proyecciones
Económicas de la CEPAL, orientado a homogeneizar
las cifras y a hacerlas internacionalmente comparables. La primera parte comprende indicadores socioeconómicos
derivados (tasas de crecimiento, proporciones
o coeficientes), que representan una visión resumida de
cada área de interés y que constituyen antecedentes para
que la informac…
This report is the product of a research project titled Comparative Study on East Asian and Latin American Information Technology (IT) Industries , carried out in 2004 and 2005 by the International Trade and Integration Division of the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) in Santiago, Chile, in collaboration with the Institute of Developing Economies Japan External Trade Organization (IDE/JETRO) in Chiba, Japan. The project it was financed by the Thematic Trust Fund - Information and Communication Technology (ICT) for Development, United Nations D…
In Latin America, the introduction of e-government has been a driving force in the development of Information Societies. As the citizen-government relation is often more intense at the local level, the digitization of information and communication processes in a municipality become a showcase for the demonstration of the opportunities and threats of a new technological paradigm. This study is based on a survey conducted among 106 Chilean and 77 Peruvian municipalities, investigating Information and Communication Technology (ICT) infrastructure, generic services in the front- and back-office of…
Abstract Central America needs a regular, flexible, safe and affordable infrastructure and transport services in order to prevail over the existing bottlenecks and constrained intra-regional trade patterns. This need is widely recognized to achieve a sustained economic development, both national and regionally. Today, Central American countries face the following problems in their transport systems: lack of sufficient transport infrastructure and high transport costs. These problems have led to a decline in the competitiveness of the regional economies and sluggish economic growth …
On the basis of a study on mortgage loan options available in
eight Latin American countries, this article identifies two pending tasks for most of the countries: the need to make long-term funds available to mitigate the risk of a mismatch of maturities and rates, and the need to harmonize profitability criteria for lenders with the criterion of access to credit for the low-income population. The paper recommends the creation of linkages between the housing finance market and the capital market through secondary mortgage markets, for which the housing
finance market must use instruments other…
Recent analytical work has focused on exchange-rate regimes and their general and specific consequences for growth and stability. Although significant progress has been made in formulating taxonomies of regimes, general consensus on which regimes are likely to prove optimal for given economies has proven elusive. In recent years, the five Andean economies have adapted a variety of exchange-rate regimes. Their experience appears to support the view that the most convenient exchange-rate regimes are those that afford policymakers sufficient freedom of maneuver to adjust their policies in r…
The report aims to contribute to a better understanding of the different indices of e-Readiness and their application in the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean. Different institutions have used indices of e-Readiness in search to quantify a country's preparedness for the Information Society. These indices are composed of different indicators that are based on various statistics. The weight of each component of the index, as well as the chosen statistics, differs among indices. In the majority of cases, studies of e-Readiness conclude with a ranking , listing cou…
As in many other countries, the viability and sustainability of social security
systems in the Caribbean is of concern to policy makers. Although systems in the region
remain relatively young, liquid and healthy at this time, timely reform is necessary to
prevent a crisis in the future. Reform is required to grapple with population ageing, a
fairly large informal (non-contributing); sector in some countries, high open
unemployment and the impact of Human Immunodeficiency Virus/Acquired Immune
Deficiency Syndrome (HIV/AIDS);. Caribbean social security systems (pension branch);
are defined benef…
This article seeks to answer the question asked in the title: no easy task, as we shall see. To this end, it will be necessary, firstly, to clarify what globalization means in this context; secondly, to identify the relations between the globalization process and local areas: a matter which some people consider to be ambiguous or (falsely); solved through the death of the local dimension and of geography in general; thirdly, to determine whether something like local development belongs in the
logic of globalization, clarifying in the process the different in…
Technology transfer can be defined as a broad set of processes covering the flows of know-how, experience and equipment for mitigating and adapting to change amongst different stakeholders, such as governments, private sector entities, financial institutions, nongovernmental organizations and research/education institutions. It covers technology transfer processes among developed countries, developing countries and countries with economies in transition. It involves learning to understand, utilise and replicate the technology, including the capacity to choose and adapt to local conditions and …
Executive summary
The objective of this report is to assess the extent to which the standardized methodology
developed by ECLAC for Argentina and Chile in 1999-2001 is applicable to comparisons among
other countries, as well as the adaptations that may be needed for that purpose, and to develop an
expanded and more general methodology for the comparison of military expenditure (or defence
spending);. For this purpose, the present report consists of six chapters and six annexes.
Chapter I, Introduction: setting the stage , seeks to place the issue of measuring military
exp…