This document was prepared by the Economic Projections Centre, under the supervision of Hubert Escaith, Director of the Statistics and Economic Projections Division of the ECLAC. André Hofman, Chief of the Economic Projections Centre (ECP), was in charge of technical coordination and for conducting the study. The assistance of the national and subregional offices and of the ECLAC Economic Development Division was much appreciated. The views expressed in this document, which have not been formally edited, are the sole responsibility of the working group and do not necessarily reflect the vi…
This paper examines the challenges facing the labour market in the Caribbean. It uses a combination of past studies and interviews with key informants to identify the key challenges and main policy responses. The main challenges are youth unemployment, the mismatch between the educational system and the needs of the labour market, the creation of jobs, the low levels of productivity coupled with relatively high wages, the emigration of skilled labour from the region and inadequate labour market information. A number of policy measures are suggested for dealing with these challenges: educationa…
This volume deals with macroeconomic issues and their relationship to growth in emerging economies. Lack of economic growth has been a feature of Latin American economies since the 1980s. In this book the analysis is complemented by two studies focused in East Asia and South Africa. All country cases examined have exhibited low inflation but high instability of economic activity in the 1990s and early 2000s. These cases provide relevant theoretical implications for a broader understanding of real macroeconomic policies in economies vulnerable to the globalization of financial volatility.…
Contents
Foreword
Regional Financial Cooperation: Experiences and Challenges, José Antonio Ocampo
Reforming the Global Financial Architecture: The Potential of Regional Institutions, Roy Culpeper
Regional Development Banks: A Comparative Perspective, Francisco Sagasti and Fernando Prada
Regional Exchange Rate Arrangements: The European Experience, Charles Wyplosz
European Financial Institutions: A Useful Inspiration for Developing Countries? Stephany Griffith-Jones, Alfred Steinherr, and Ana Tereza Fuzzo de Lima
Macroeconomic Coordination in Latin America: Does It Have a Future? J…
Reseña Este documento fue preparado por Américo Ibarra Larra y Gonzalo Martner Fanta, Consultores de la Unidad de Estudios Especiales de CEPAL, bajo el componente de Macroeconomía, equidad y seguridad social, del proyecto CEPAL/GTZ: Policy Strategies for Sustainable Development in Latin America and the Caribbean: Promotion of a Socially Sustainable Economic Policy (GER/01/31) , que contó con el apoyo de la Deutsche Gesellschaft für Zusammenarbeit (GTZ). Preparado como apoyo al documento La protección social de cara al futuro: Acceso, financiamiento y solidaridad pre…
Reseña
Este documento fue preparado por Víctor Tokman, Consultor de la Unidad de Estudios Especiales de CEPAL, bajo el
componente de Macroeconomía, equidad y seguridad social, del proyecto CEPAL/GTZ: Policy Strategies for Sustainable
Development in Latin America and the Caribbean: Promotion of a Socially Sustainable Economic Policy (GER/01/31); ,
que contó con el el apoyo de la Deutsche Gesellschaft fur Zusammenarbeit (GTZ);. El autor agradece la colaboración de
E. Fajynzilber y E. Espíndola y los comentarios de A. Uthoff, D. Titelman, J. Weller todos ellos funcionarios de CEPAL.El
…
Reseña Este documento fue preparado por Víctor Tokman, Consultor de la Unidad de Estudios Especiales de CEPAL, bajo el componente de Macroeconomía, equidad y seguridad social, del proyecto CEPAL/GTZ: Policy Strategies for Sustainable Development in Latin America and the Caribbean: Promotion of a Socially Sustainable Economic Policy (GER/01/31) , que contó con el el apoyo de la Deutsche Gesellschaft fur Zusammenarbeit (GTZ). El autor agradece la colaboración de E. Fajynzilber y E. Espíndola y los comentarios de A. Uthoff, D. Titelman, J. Weller todos ellos funcionarios de CEPAL.El au…
Reseña
Este documento fue preparado por Adolfo Rodríguez Herrera, Consultor de la Unidad de Estudios Especiales de CEPAL, bajo el
componente de Macroeconomía, equidad y seguridad social, del proyecto CEPAL/GTZ: Policy Strategies for Sustainable Development in
Latin America and the Caribbean: Promotion of a Socially Sustainable Economic Policy (GER/01/31); , que contó con el apoyo de la
Deutsche Gesellschaft fur Zusammenarbeit (GTZ);.
Preparado como apoyo al documento La protección social de cara al futuro: Acceso, financiamiento y solidaridad presentado en el XXXI
Per…
This document analyses the origins and consequences of debt accumulation in the Caribbean. The focus is placed on Caribbean Community (CARICOM) economies. The document also examines current strategies for the reduction of debt…
Abstract The author examines the pension systems of Bolivia and Antigua in the context of non-contributory pensions around the world, concluding with policy lessons. Universal pensions available to everyone of eligible age, regardless of income, assets or employment history, have many advantages over targeted pensions. If targeting is desired, it is best done with ex post recovery from other income rather than ex ante means tests. For reasons that are unclear, governments almost always prefer ex ante tests to ex post controls for noncontributory pensions, even though the reverse is tr…
We analyze the emergence of large-scale education systems in a framework where growth is associated with changes in the configuration of the economy. We model the incentives that the economic elite could have (collectively); to accept taxation destined to finance the education of credit-constrained workers. Contrary to previous work, in our model, this incentive does not necessarily arise from a complementarity between physical and human capital in manufacturing. Instead, we emphasize the demand for human-capital-intensive services by high-income groups. Our model seems capable to account for …
The inadequacies of social protection in Latin America and the Caribbean reveal a clear need for more active fiscal policies in this area. Although economic growth and decent employment are indispensable preconditions for social progress, the need for financing from public expenditure is ineluctable in the medium term. The present article examines three ways of achieving this objective. The first is to close the tax gap, since the fiscal burden is low in most Latin American and Caribbean countries. The second is to construct budgeting systems capable of removing rigidities and reallocating pub…
Abstract This paper presents a methodology for adjusting measures of income and poverty for the risk faced by a household. The approach draws on the standard economic concept of risk aversion, and it is based on the intuition that households will prefer a steady stream of income to a variable one with the same mean. Relying on a Constant Relative Risk Aversion utility function, we use panel data for Argentina to compute risk-adjusted income and poverty measures. At the aggregate level, we find that taking risk into account substantially increases the poverty headcount. Moreover, a regression …
Abstract We study the effect of fertility on maternal labour supply in Argentina and Mexico exploiting a source of exogenous variability in family size first introduced by Angrist and Evans (1998) for the United States. We find that the estimates for the US can be generalized both qualitatively and quantitatively to the populations of two developing countries where, compared to the US, fertility is known to be higher, female education levels are much lower and there are fewer formal facilities for childcare.…
The Report of the Secretary General of the United Nations on the implementation of the Millennium Declaration, entitled In larger freedom: towards security, development and human rights for all is a strong reminder of the need for an integrated approach to the various subjects considered therein, specially as they relate to the consolidation of democracy and of a durable peace. The subsequent establishment of the United Nations Peacebuilding Commission, has opened a promising instance for the contribution from different sectors to the fundamental task of post-conflict reconstruction. T…
Abstract The unprecedented accumulation of international reserves by emerging markets raises the question of how to best utilize these funds; in particular if they should be held as a war chest to guard against the risk of financial crisis or if they should be used to recapitalize and strengthen weak banking systems. A third issue is if the resource cost could be limited by pooling the holdings of different central banks and if so, to what objectives should this reserve pool be put. This paper considers these questions with reference to the countries participating in the Latin American…
1. Rasgos generales de la evolución reciente La actividad económica en el Istmo Centroamericano registró en 2005 una expansión igual a la del año anterior (4%), apenas por debajo del promedio de América Latina y el Caribe (4,3%). Excluyendo a Panamá, la tasa de crecimiento se elevó de 3,3% a 3,6%. También fue notable una menor dispersión de las tasas alrededor del promedio. Todos los países se hallan en la fase expansiva del ciclo económico, ya que se cumplieron tres años de incremento del producto interno bruto (PIB) por habitante, después del retroceso ocurrido en el bienio 2001-2002. Si …