Growth versus development: different patterns of industrial growth in Latin America during the 'boom' years

Between 2003 and 2008 Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) experienced its most remarkable expansionary period since the 1970s. Yet, LAC countries' productivity gaps widened during this period vis-à-vis industrialized countries (here represented by the United States' manufacturing sector) as revealed in CEPAL (2010). The paper splits up this process and examines the different outcomes observed at the national level for the cases of Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia and Mexico during these boom years. It examines the composition of productivity divergence in terms of sec…

Seminario Internacional de UNASUR "De la Integración Política a la Integración Económica y Financiera". Panel: América Latina, la institucionalidad regional y los foros internacionales: la UNASUR, el G-20, el G-24, el G-77, el G-192

The Outlook for Agriculture and Rural Development in the Americas: A Perspective on Latin America and the Caribbean 2011-2012

Just as the world economy was showing signs of a recovery, a new global recession and a financial crisis in Europe are looming on the horizon. The economies of the great majority of countries grew in 2010, albeit at different speeds. While growth in the most developed countries was sluggish and in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) averaged a little over 4%, the production of the developing economies rose by more than 6.5%, with China and India, the new engines of the world economy, leading the way. Paradoxically, the specter of recession has appeared when the global economy is also showing…

The dynamics of industrial energy consumption in Latin America and their implications for sustainable development

This article analyses the relationship between energy consumptionin industry and industrial productivity and the implications of this forsustainable development. To this end, it presents a matrix characterizingeconomies as: (i); converging or diverging in terms of energy consumptionper unit of value added, and (ii); catching up with or falling further behindthe productivity level of the international frontier (the United States);. On thebasis of data from the industrial surveys of four Latin American countries(Brazil, Chile, Colombia and Mexico);, it concludes that the region's evidentspe…

Productivity growth in Latin American manufacturing: what role for international trade intensities?

This paper analyzes the relationship between the intensity of international trade flows and labor productivity for 28 industries in the five main economies in the region (Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia and Mexico) using the Arellano-Bond generalized method of moments (GMM) estimator. The results show that international trade flows contributed through various channels to labor productivity growth in the period 1990 to 2008. These channels, which have been developed in the theoretical literature, are export intensity (share of production exported), import penetration (share of domestic deman…