An assessment of fiscal and regulatory barriers to the deployment of energy efficiency and renewable energy technologies in Saint Lucia

An assessment of fiscal and regulatory barriers to the deployment of energy efficiency and renewable energy technologies in Grenada

Boletín estadístico de comercio exterior de bienes en América Latina y el Caribe. Cuarto trimestre de 2013 (Nro. 13)

Latin America and the Caribbean in the World Economy 2013: A sluggish postcrisis, mega trade negotiations and value chains: scope for regional action

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…

Panorama Social de América Latina 2013

En esta edición de 2013 del Panorama Social de América Latina se presentan las mediciones oficiales de la CEPAL respecto del análisis de la pobreza por ingresos y se procura ofrecer enfoques novedosos sobre pobreza y bienestar, poniendo especial énfasis en enfoques multidimensionales, de carácter exploratorio. Cabe aclarar que estos análisis, justamente por ser exploratorios, no son exhaustivos. El criterio para su incorporación responde a la certeza de que, tanto en el ámbito de la política social y de la evaluación del desarrollo social como de las nuevas demandas ciudadanas, emerge la neces…

Commercial bank financing for micro-enterprises and SMEs in Mexico

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…

A modelling framework for assessing the economic impact of climate change in the Caribbean

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…

Inequality in education in Costa Rica: The gap between students in public and private schools. An analysis of the results of the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA)

This article presents the main results of the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) for Costa Rica in 2009 and then goes on to analyse the gap between the scores of students attending private schools and those attending public schools. However, the estimation of an education production function using these data shows that this gap is not entirely attributable to whether schools are public or private, but that instead the students' family environment, personal traits and, in particular, the student's grade level at the time that the PISA test was taken are all quite in…

Motherhood wage penalties and labour market segmentation: Evidence from Argentina

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…

Gender differences in workplace choices under crisis conditions

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…

The structural heterogeneity of family farming in Brazil

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…

Chile: Port congestion and efficient rationing in cargo transfer operations

No pricing system is likely to be able to do away with congestion in port cargo transfer operations at peak times, since port use is determined not so much by seasonal factors as, first and foremost, by the simultaneous arrival of vessels, which results in rationing. This article shows that rationing, to be efficient, needs to go by the value of the cargo transferred rather than following a first-come-first-served rule. It demonstrates that efficient rationing gives priority to containerized cargo, followed by break bulk cargo, with bulk cargo in last place. These findings are applied to cargo…

The performance of transnational corporations: Evidence for the manufacturing industry in Chile

This article analyses the performance of transnational corporations in Chilean manufacturing industry. The findings show that while the productivity of subsidiaries of foreign-owned firms is higher than that of local firms, the same is not true of productivity growth. They also show that there are no significant differences in market survival rates between transnational corporations and local firms. However, firms under mainly foreign ownership that are small and have low productivity are more likely to exit the market, displaying more footloose behaviour than their local counterparts. This is…

An assessment of the dynamics between the permanent and transitory components of Mexico's output and unemployment

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…

An empirical analysis of technology absorption capacity of the Brazilian industry

This article presents and discusses empirical evidence on external technology absorption facilitated by activities performed inside firms. Indicators of internal and external learning are developed and applied in statistical causality models, to distinguish possible ways in which technology can be absorbed. Industrial activity sectors at the three-digit level of the National Classification of Economic Activities (NACE) are the basic reference units of the research, which uses the information generated by Brazil's Survey of Technological Innovation (PINTEC). The results show that in-house …

A regional reserve fund for Latin America

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.…

Network for Cooperation in Integrated Water Resource Management for Sustainable Development in Latin America and the Caribbean No. 39

Carta Circular de la Red de Cooperación en la Gestión Integral de Recursos Hídricos para el Desarrollo Sustentable en América Latina y el Caribe N° 39

Evolution of the Caribbean Debt

The advance of cloud computing