This article aims to classify and analyze the efforts at structural change made in the Brazilian motor industry between 1990 and 1996, seeking to relate them with the economic policy measures which had most impact on the sector. The study begins by examining the explosive increase in domestic demand for motor vehicles, its determining factors, and its main implications, especially the achievement of efficient scales of production and the initiation of a wave of investments which has been further intensified in the last three years. It goes on to study the increase in the technological dynamism…
Trade among the ALADI countries has grown with exceptional vigour so far in the 1990s, especially in the branches of metal products, machinery and equipment, chemical products, and foodstuffs, beverages and tobacco. In order for this dynamic growth to be sustainable in the long term, these countries must develop their intra-industry trade by promoting reciprocal supply in those branches. The bulk of transnational productive capital in Latin America is concentrated in those branches, and it is in the metal products, machinery and equipment sector that the swiftest increase in intra-industry tra…
1 Ago 1995, 00:00 - 14 Oct 2025, 07:49
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This study examines South-South economic relations in the context of regionalism. It covers three Latin American countries and eight high-performing Asian developing economies. Although the level of trade and investment between these two groups is currently very low, trade is growing fast and there are indications that the potential for continued growth exists. Although regionalism is advancing in both these parts of the world, it has so far not affected the ties between the two groups of countries, and in fact inter-regional trade growth has recently been exceeding intra-regional …
The external and internal imbalances that appeared in the early 1980s, together with the adjustment and stabilization policies applied throughout that decade in Latin America, juxtaposed the need to reduce the fiscal deficit with the need to make up for the loss of income sustained by the most vulnerable groups of the population as a consequence of the external debt crisis. This article examines patterns of social expenditure in a number of countries in the region, in an effort to determine how these policies affected the level and composition of social spending and, hence, influenced social p…
1 Ago 2010, 00:00 - 14 Oct 2025, 07:49
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This article discusses various hypotheses relating to the originand operation of business groups in Mexico, and it proposes a model toexplain the sources of their total asset growth. It highlights their growingcontribution to Mexican gdp, but notes that their shares of employmentand profits are smaller. Over time, sales and assets have clearly tendedto become more concentrated in the largest groups. The paper concludesthat the main financing sources for asset growth between 2005 and 2007were firstly debt and secondly capital contributions from shareholders. Italso finds that the leading groups…
1 Ago 2004, 00:00 - 14 Oct 2025, 07:50
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The growth of high-quality employment needed to reduce the share of informal
occupation and open unemployment in Peru will require an acceleration
and diversification of private investment in the tradable sector. One of
the main constraints faced is the uncompetitiveness of the
non-extractive tradable sector. In 1990-2003, competitiveness improved
in this sector essentially as a result of lower labour costs, a socially unjust
and economically ineffective route to follow. To raise competitiveness,
it is essential for the macroeconomic regime to include a competitive
real exchange rate (to which…
1 Abr 2002, 00:00 - 14 Oct 2025, 07:49
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In the 1990s,Argentina received large amounts of foreign direct investment and the participation of multinational companies in the country's economy increased significantly. As during the import substitution industrialization period, the basic goal of multinationals is still to exploit the domestic market.Two differences from that period can be observed, however:access to the Brazilian market allows for greater economies of scale and specialization,and increased competition in many tradable sectors is forcing subsidiaries to bring their operations closer to international best practice. Th…
1 Ago 2001, 00:00 - 14 Oct 2025, 07:50
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This article analyses the main determinants of private-sector investment in Brazil during the period 1956-1996, using an empirical model employed in the most recent studies on developing countries. The econometric procedures followed not only take into account the non-stationarity of the data series examined, but allow for the possible difficulties involved in treating the conditioning variables as exogenous ones or as policy instruments. The findings -both the long-term equations and the short-term models- reveal the positive impact of the output, public investment and financial credit variab…
1 Abr 2000, 00:00 - 14 Oct 2025, 07:49
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In this article, indicators of fiscal discretionality are estimated using a simple methodology, and in this way the cyclical component of the public accounts balance (i.e., the amounts of income and expenditure associated with transitory movements of the level of activity); is identified for a number of Latin American countries in the 1990s. The difference gives a measure of the discretional balance, which represents a medium-term indicator of the state of the public accounts. Budgetary rules which take account of these mechanisms not only ensure sustainability over time but also reduce the cy…
1 Abr 1999, 00:00 - 14 Oct 2025, 07:50
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This article analyses the impact of public investment on private investment. Apart from purely ideological aspects, two opposing interpretations may be distinguished with regard to the relationship between these variables. The first is that there is competition between public and private investment, so that the former crowds out the latter. The second is that public investment is complementary to private investment in so far that, by generating positive externalities, it creates favourable conditions for the latter. In view of the relative scarcity of empirical studies on this matt…
1 Abr 2011, 00:00 - 14 Oct 2025, 07:50
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This article sets out to empirically determine whether the ratiobetween debt and gross domestic product (GDP); affected real and nominalvariables such as the demand for money, the nominal interest rate,investment and the output gap, between January 1995 and March 2008.The specific aim is to identify fiscal-policy transmission channels and decidewhether this policy was active or passive in the period in question. Thestudy finds empirical evidence that fiscal policy was active and monetarypolicy passive -features that characterize a non-Ricardian model.…
The constitution of a new international industrial order dominated by a core of large transnational corporations generally makes life more difficult for the great majority of developing countries because, since most are not in a position to compete effectively, they face still greater marginalization. TNCS more than ever before can significantly influence the international competitiveness and therefore the nature of incorporation of developing countries into the new increasingly integrated international production system. The national origin and form of foreign direct investment and technology…
Latin American manufacturing industry has undergone various changes in recent years. It has registered a favourable performance as far as exports are concerned, but production and investment have grown only slowly in a context of sluggish recovery of domestic demand and greater foreign competition. Other features are greater specialization in natural resource-based intermediate goods characterized by the importance of economies of scale, relatively long lead times for the heavy investments required, and the presence of privatized and transnational enterprises. At the same time, there are signs…
1 Mayo 2000, 00:00 - 14 Oct 2025, 07:49
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Second regional conference in follow-up to the World Summit for Social Development. Santiago, Chile, 15-17 May 2000 Summary The courses of action recommended at the World Summit for Social Development coincide with the general thrust of the action taken by the Governments of the region in the economic and social spheres during the 1990s. The objective of this document is to weigh the positive and negative aspects of the situation in Latin America and the Caribbean with regard to poverty reduction, productive job creation and social integration within the wider context of economic changes and s…
This article aims to make a walk-through in the virtual reality of budgetary and fiscal matters in order to identify the possible degrees of freedom to achieve a higher level of convergence between the public discourse on equity and the real content of public policies aimed at that goal. To this end, the author explores possible answers to four questions: what is the current meaning of the concept of equity; how much leeway is there in the field of taxation for expanding resources and improving vertical equity; what means are there for giving priority to the objective of equity in managing pub…
1 Abr 1997, 00:00 - 14 Oct 2025, 07:50
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This article makes both a theoretical and an empirical analysis of the new policies applied in Argentina since 1992 with regard to the treatment accorded to capital goods: exemption from import duties, with drawback facilities for domestic producers in respect of their local sales. The new system is evaluated through a detailed analysis of its effects on demand for capital goods (section II);; on the domestic supply of such goods (section III);; and on some macroeconomic variables such as the fiscal balance (section IV); and the external balance (section V);. Some aspects relating to the manag…
1 Ago 2002, 00:00 - 14 Oct 2025, 07:50
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Financial liberalization and the lifting of capital market restrictions have brought in foreign investment and made more financing available for investment projects,but at the same time have made it easier for financial crises originating in Latin America or elsewhere to spread.Such crises became more frequent in the 1990s,and as a result a more careful study was made of the impact of capital flow instability on investment.Hypotheses derived from theoretical procedures were checked against econometric exercises showing that capital flows have a positive impact,but that negative consequences ar…
1 Abr 1998, 00:00 - 14 Oct 2025, 07:50
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International experience shows that costfree replication and adoption of industrial best practices on a universal basis is a misconception. Rather, it is a matter of a progressive and reciprocal adaptation between external and local practices in which learning costs and times, as well as the need for public and private cooperation, are essential. The potential for convergence of policies, practices and institutions triggered by globalization appears to be greater at the macroeconomic than at the microeconomic level. This article examines such issues in a general way and then focuses on the di…
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…
4 Mar 2024, 00:00 - 14 Oct 2025, 07:49
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Comunicado de prensa
En el marco de su visita oficial al país, el Secretario Ejecutivo de la Comisión Económica para América Latina y el Caribe (CEPAL), José Manuel Salazar-Xirinachs, se reunió hoy en Ciudad de Guatemala con el Presidente de la República de Guatemala, Bernardo Arévalo de León, encuentro en el que dialogaron sobre la agenda actual de cooperación entre el Gobierno y el organismo regional de las Naciones Unidas y exploraron áreas de colaboración para el desarrollo de esta nación centroamericana.
La CEPAL ha enfatizado la importancia de que los países de América Latina y el Caribe dinamicen su crecimi…