The Macroeconomics for development blue print for Latin America and the Caribbean is articulated around two issues: an active strategy of productive development and a counter cyclical policy stance. Macroeconomic counter cyclicality refers to the management of the level of aggregate demand to dampen the fluctuations and volatility of real and nominal variables around their long-term trends. This paper argues that cycle and trend are interdependent and that, as a result, counter cyclical policies (i.e., aggregate demand policies) are not neutral to the long-run behaviour of economies.…
Esta investigación tiene el objetivo principal de identificar las relaciones
entre la recepción de remesas internacionales y el nivel de pobreza de los
hogares en Haití. La metodología se basa en las técnicas econométricas
del Propensity Score Matching (PSM), aplicado a la última encuesta de
hogares de Haití (Enquête Budget Consommation des Ménages, EBCM,
1999-2000). Las remesas representan cerca del 21% del PIB de Haití y se
busca evaluar sus efectos a nivel microeconómico en los hogares, así
como su capacidad de revertir o mitigar la incidencia de pobreza (57,8%
de los hogares), en el único …
Recently, Latin American countries have had to face the challenges of improving social inclusion and economic redistribution while consolidating democratic institutions after long periods of authoritarian regimes in many of them. Addressing pressure for social inclusion was all the more difficult, since these societies are characterized by some of the worst income disparities in the world and high degrees of labor market informality.
After the 70’s, the massive explosion of social demands in the transition to democracy transformed the region into a social laboratory aiming to promote social in…
Desde sus orígenes, los Sistemas de Pagos Transnacionales (SPT) dentro y fuera de la región se establecieron principalmente para promover un mayor comercio intrarregional; pero al mismo tiempo, también se han propuesto promover una mayor integración financiera mediante una cooperación más estrecha entre los bancos centrales. Dicha cooperación se ha fundado en la necesidad de coadyuvar a generar mayores ahorros de divisas, especialmente en tiempos de escasez, y a mejorar el acceso a los mercados financieros internacionales.
A los fines de estimular el comercio intrarregional, los SPT vigentes e…
El objetivo de este estudio es desarrollar una propuesta metodológica para incorporar la perspectiva de derechos humanos en la formulación, puesta en marcha, monitoreo y evaluación de la política laboral en los países seleccionados (Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua y México). Se consideran tres derechos humanos- al trabajo digno, la alimentación y la salud- establecidos en el Protocolo de San Salvador y el Pacto Internacional de Derechos Económicos, Sociales y Culturales. Con tal propósito, se analizan los factores que pueden influir en el alcance y efectividad de los derechos hum…
En esta publicación se examina la forma en que la financiación de la deuda externa ha evolucionado en las últimas tres décadas. Se remonta 30 años y se analiza la trayectoria de la región de América Latina y el Caribe desde la singular perspectiva del acceso a los mercados financieros internacionales. Como el título indica, esta trayectoria ha sido una montaña rusa, con muchos altibajos, y momentos de angustia y pánico.
Los acontecimientos de las últimas tres décadas, tal como se describen en este libro, indican que un acceso más amplio y más barato a los mercados internacionales de capital pu…
The 2013 edition of Latin America and the Caribbean in the World Economy is subtitled “A sluggish postcrisis, mega trade negotiations and value chains: scope for regional action” and is made up of three chapters. Chapter 1 reviews the main features of the persistently weak global economy and lacklustre world trade and then turns to global and regional trade trends and prospects. Chapter II considers the main changes in the organization of production and global trade associated with international production networks, which are at the heart of the current mega-regional negotiations. It goes on t…
El fortalecimiento del Fondo Latinoamericano de Reservas (FLAR) por la vía de expandir su tamaño y cobertura para incluir a un mayor número de países de la región sería un aporte importante a la provisión de un bien público regional y global como lo es la estabilidad financiera. Este trabajo intenta arrojar luz sobre la viabilidad, las implicancias y los desafíos, de una eventual ampliación del FLAR a otros cinco países de la región: Argentina, Brasil, Chile, México y Paraguay.…
This article examines commercial bank lending strategies for micro-enterprises and
small and medium-sized businesses (SMEs) in Mexico, and the factors that promote
or hinder lending in this segment. With this in mind, in 2011 a detailed survey was
conducted of commercial banks operating in Mexico. Although credit to microenterprises
and smes still represents a small share of the loan portfolio, the survey
results point to growing interest in broadening it. Three different business models
were identified, with major differences in strategies for offering financial services to
this segment of en…
The eclac-Climate Impacts Assessment Model (CIAM) is a modelling platform that
has been created to assess the economic consequences of climate change in the
Caribbean. The model can be freely accessed, downloaded and even modified.
The version available is a full-fledged model which can readily be used to conduct
simulation exercises. This paper provides a general description of the model and
an illustrative simulation exercise. Our results from this exercise highlight the fact
that the Caribbean is a highly vulnerable region where climate change is expected
to generate sizeable and negative e…
This article explores the connection between labour market segregation and
motherhood wage penalties in Argentina across the formal and informal sectors. It
uses ordinary least square and quantile regression estimation strategies and deploys
Blinder-Oaxaca and Ñopo decompositions to identify sources of wage differences.
The finding is that there is strong evidence of labour market segmentation and that
motherhood wage penalties differ substantively across the sectors and between
different wage quantiles. In particular, formal-sector working mothers do not
experience wage penalties, while infor…
Working from home is an option that differs from other forms of employment. This
type of employment is driven not only by globalization and outsourcing, but also by
unequal gender relationships within the home. Two multi-logistic regressions were
used to determine how the distribution of in-home working arrangements differs by
sex and by male/female age range, level of education, marital status and degree of
urbanization of the place of residence. The results suggest that these characteristics
have a differential influence on men's and women's employment decisions. The
results also i…
Regional and productive inequality may stem from the agricultural modernization
process, in which some agents are able to incorporate and absorb technological
content, while others are excluded, not only from the innovative organizational
environment, but also from learning processes and the dissemination of new
production techniques and knowledge. This paper analyses family farming, by
making comparisons in regional terms and by groups of producers using high,
medium and low technology. It also calculates the productive inequality index (Gini
coefficient of gross income) of the north, north-e…
Previous studies about the relationship between the cyclical components of Mexico's
output and unemployment suggest that it closely resembles that found in the
economy of the United States of America. This would indicate that the dynamics
between output and labour markets in the two economies are rather similar. However,
these estimates are puzzling for they do not correspond to a characterization made
to Mexico's labour market. Using a methodology first proposed by Clark (1989),
we find that the correlation between the transitory components of output and
unemployment is much lower t…
El comercio internacional es un componente fundamental de la globalización y del proceso de desarrollo económico en el cual se inserta América Latina y el Caribe. Este proceso lleva concomitante también, un proceso de financiamiento cuyas características son importantes de comprender y que constituyen el foco de este documento, orientado desde la perspectiva del desarrollo de América Latina.
Los patrones de comercio internacional han cambiado en el tiempo, con consecuencias de distinto orden. La primera ola de globalización, desde mediados del siglo XIX hasta 1913, se caracterizó por un fuerte…
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