This year's Economic Survey of Latin America and the Caribbean is the fifty-sixth edition in this series. It is divided into two parts. The first analyses the main features of the regional economy, while the second examines the situation in the individual countries of Latin America and the Caribbean. Part one deals with the performance of the region's economy and begns with an introduction that summarizes recent trends and the challenges faced by economic policy-makers. The following chapters are devoted to the international situation and the external sector, macroeconomic (fiscal, …
La presente edición del Estudio económico de América Latina y el Caribe corresponde al número 56 de esta serie y se divide en dos partes. En la primera se analizan los principales aspectos de la economía regional, mientras en la segunda se examina la coyuntura de los países de América Latina y del Caribe. La primera parte, dedicada al desempeño de la economía de la región, se inicia con una introducción en la que se resumen las principales tendencias de la evolución reciente y se destacan los desafíos que enfrenta la política económica. Los capítulos siguientes están dedicados al escenario in…
El fenómeno de contagio en las crisis financieras y cambiarias de
los últimos años indica que es preciso ampliar el campo de acción de la política macroeconómica y llevarlo del plano nacional al plano regional. Este artículo da a conocer los principales conceptos y desafíos que plantea la cooperación macroeconómica en América Latina y el Caribe y los evalúa
desde el punto de vista de la teoría de los juegos. Bajo ciertas condiciones
que tienen que ver con el debate sobre las áreas monetarias óptimas,
ingresar a un esquema de cooperación favorecerá a todos los participantes.
Además, el trabajo …
The contagion aspects of the financial and exchange-rate crises in
recent years demonstrate the need to extend the domain of macroeconomic
policy from the national dimension to the regional one. This paper
presents the main concepts and challenges behind macroeconomic policy
cooperation in Latin America and the Caribbean and evaluates them from
a game-theory perspective. Under certain conditions related to the debate
on optimal currency areas, entering into a cooperative dynamic will be beneficial for all participants. Moreover, it is shown that because the welfare gains from regional cooperat…
This paper looks at the evolution of the terms of trade between commodities and manufactures in the twentieth century. A statistical analysis of the relative price series for 24 commodities and eight indices reveals a significant deterioration in their barter terms of trade over the years 1900 to 2000. This decline was not continuous, however, nor was it distributed evenly among individual products. As is shown here, the far-reaching changes that the world economy underwent around 1920 and again around 1980 led to a stepwise deterioration which, over the long term, was reflected in a decline o…
Este artículo examina la evolución de los términos de intercambio
entre productos básicos y manufacturas en los años
1900 a 2000. Un análisis estadístico de las series de precios
relativos de 24 productos básicos y ocho índices muestra que
hubo un deterioro marcado de los términos de intercambio de
trueque a lo largo del siglo XX, pero que este deterioro no fue
continuo, ni tampoco homogéneo entre productos. Según se
muestra aquí, las profundas transformaciones que enfrentó la
economía mundial alrededor de 1920 y de 1980 se tradujeron
en un deterioro escalonado, que se reflejó a largo plazo en…
Abstract This paper looks at the evolution of the terms of trade between commodities and manufactures in the twentieth century. A statistical analysis of the relative price series for 24 commodities and of eight indices reveals a significant deterioration in their barter terms of trade over the course of the twentieth century. This decline was neither continuous, nor was it distributed evenly among individual products, however. The data show that the far-reaching changes that the world economy underwent around 1920 and again around 1980 led to…
Abstract
Behind the discussion on optimal exchange-rate regimes lies the need to achieve external and internal equilibrium, and thus create an appropriate macroeconomic climate for sustained growth and development. The optimality and feasibility of exchange-rate regimes in individual Latin American and Caribbean countries must take into consideration several parameters linked to microeconomics, open macroeconomics, and political economy aspects. More recently, the discussion has incorporated the regional dimension and the possibility of joining monetary unions to the set of feasible national s…
Abstract The deep economic crisis of Argentina has been causing an active quest for conclusions of topical or general importance. Indeed, an experience of this kind is likely to generate useful lessons for macroeconomic theory and policy design. Some of them may be simple and straightforward (e.g.: under strong uncertainty, the arguments for precautionary savings should apply particularly to fiscal policies). However, we believe that the questions raised hardly lend themselves to trivial answers. In this paper, we propose to undertake a brief (and certainly, partial and preliminary) di…
The severe international financial crises which rocked the Latin American economies in the 1980s and 1990s suggest that the international financial system suffers from serious defects. This article looks at one of the reforms which has been mooted in recent years: strengthening regional financial cooperation. It concludes that a Latin American fund made up of a modest portion of the reserves of the countries of the region, possibly backed up with contingency credits from the international banking system, could be an effective line of defense against financial crises caused by capital flight an…
Las fuertes crisis financieras internacionales que sacudieron a
las economías latinoamericanas en los años ochenta y noventa
sugieren que el sistema financiero internacional adolece de
serios defectos. En este artículo se examina una de las reformas
que se han puesto sobre el tapete en años recientes: el
fortalecimiento de la cooperación financiera regional. Se llega
a la conclusión de que un fondo latinoamericano que contara
con una porción modesta de las reservas de los países de la
región, reforzadas quizás con créditos contingentes de la banca
internacional, podría ser una línea de defensa…
No começo da década de 80, a crise de financiamento externo da dívida pública e a incapacidade de obter um financiamento interno estável, mergulharam o país em 15 anos de hiperinflação, limitando a transferência de recursos do Estado para o setor agrícola. O programa de crédito rural subsidiado e a política de garantia de preços mínimos perderam a capacidade de coordenação da estabilização de ingresso no setor e, consequentemente, sobre a expansão da fronteira agrícola e das novas áreas produtivas da região centro-oeste e norte do país. As sucessivas tentativas frustradas de estabilização da …
Resumen Este volumen recoge la versión revisada de los trabajos presentados al XI Seminario Regional de Política Fiscal, realizado en la Escuela de Hacienda Pública (ESAF) de Brasil, localizada en Brasilia D.F., en enero de 1999. Los temas abordados y los trabajos invitados fueron definidos por un Comité Organizador compuesto por representantes de CEPAL, FMI, Banco Mundial y BID. El primer tema está dedicado al análisis de los problemas de coordinación de políticas macroeconómicas en presencia de choques externos. El segundo analiza las perspectivas del impuesto sobre la renta en un mundo de e…
Export Growth in Latin America: Policies and Performance by Carla Macario with Regis Bonelli, Adriaan ten Kate and Gunnar Niels. Latin American and Caribbean countries have substantially transformed their economies over the past decades by adopting policies that set aside import substitution development strategies and foster a greater outward orientation of their economies, assigning a high priority to increasing exports. Nevertheless, in most cases export performance is still deficient, and many countries in the region have not fully taken advantage of the opportunities arising from …
Naciones Unidas