El camino hacia las nuevas negociaciones comerciales en la OMC, post Doha

Introducción La creación de la Organización Mundial del Comercio (OMC) fue uno de los productos de la Ronda Uruguay, la octava ronda de negociaciones multilaterales de comercio desde la firma del GATT en 1947. A seis años de iniciada la aplicación de tales acuerdos el hecho reciente de mayor relevancia en el sistema multilateral fue el desarrollo de la IV Conferencia Ministerial de la OMC, en noviembre de 2001 en Doha - Qatar. En esta oportunidad los 142 países participantes de la OMC aprobaron una agenda amplia de trabajo y negociaciones que deberán concluirse antes de enero de 2005. Gran pa…

The evolution of world income inequality: assessing the impact of globalization

Abstract In the last two centuries (1800-2000) the world has seen an unprecedented increase in the capacity to create material wealth and undergo technical change. At the same time, this is also a period of large disparities in income per head, living standards across (and within) countries and regions of the world. Large inequalities can eventually undermine global integration and social stability thus hampering long run growth prospects and the legitimacy of globalization. Global inequalities reflect both inequalities across nations, driven mainly by divergences in economic per…

Dinámica de valorización del suelo en el área metropolitana del Gran Santiago y desafíos del financiamiento urbano

A fines del siglo XX, América Latina es la región más urbanizada del mundo en desarrollo, estimándose que alrededor del 20% de su población urbana reside en áreas metropolitanas superiores a los 5 millones de habitantes. La cuestión del suelo urbano y sus repercusiones sobre el desarrollo de las ciudades fueron tópicos centrales de las dos Conferencias de Naciones Unidas sobre Asentamientos Humanos, la de Vancouver en 1976 y la de Estambul en 1996. El Plan de Acción Regional de América Latina y el Caribe (CEPAL, 1996); plantea en esta materia desafíos de mejorar la eficiencia del uso del suelo…

Evolución del comercio y de las inversiones extranjeras en industrias ambientalmente sensibles: Comunidad Andina, MERCOSUR y Chile, 1990-1999

Este informe analiza la evolución de las corrientes comerciales y de la inversión extranjera directa en los países que conforman la Comunidad Andina, el Mercosur y Chile durante los años noventa, en función de las principales características ambientales que las componen. El objetivo es lograr aproximaciones que den cuenta del posible impacto ambiental de las transformaciones que ocurrieron en el perfil exportador de los países y subgrupos, con el fin de dar elementos de repuesta a varias interrogantes: ¿están los países en un rumbo de especialización exportadora ambientalmente adecuada o se tr…

Long run economic development in Latin America in a comparative perspective: proximate and ultimate causes

Abstract   This paper describes trends in economic growth and its causes in several Latin American countries in the 20th century. In the explanatory scheme, a distinction is made between 'proximate' and 'ultimate' causes of economic growth. Proximate causes are those areas of causality where models and quantification is possible, whereas ultimate causes are much more difficult to quantify. Some elements in the realm of the ultimate causes (like institutions and income distribution) will be analysed in an historical perspective and others, especially total factor p…

Globalization and liberalization: the impact on developing countries

Summary This paper analyzes the impact of globalization on developing countries over the last several decades. The first section examines the components and mechanisms of globalization. The second turns to financial globalization –considered to be the most important aspect of a multifaceted process– and looks in more detail at the changing trends in finance for developing countries. The third analyzes the impact of the new pattern of finance in terms of growth, equity, and government autonomy. The concluding section offers policy recommendations for making globalization a more positiv…

Financial regulation and supervision in emerging markets: the experience of Latin America since the Tequila crisis

Abstract   The financial crisis of 1994-1995 sounded a wake-up call to Latin America, indicating that regulation and supervision needed to be strengthened substantially. Since then, important steps have been taken to set rules and ensure their implementation, but financial regulation and supervision do not take place in a vacuum. On the one hand, they must be consistent with domestic macroeconomic policies, and they need a supportive macroeconomic environment in which to operate. On the other hand, they have to take into account the new international rules being proposed by multilate…

Libre mercado y agricultura: efectos de la Ronda Uruguay en Costa Rica y México

Resumen El objetivo de este documento es analizar la aplicación del Acuerdo sobre Agricultura de la Ronda Uruguay (AARU) del Acuerdo General sobre Aranceles Aduaneros y Comercio (GATT) a ocho años de su firma. Uno de sus principales efectos ha sido transformar las políticas agrícolas nacionales y someterlas a una normatividad internacional comúnmente aceptada. Se concluye que el AARU logró reducir los aranceles y las políticas que subsidian la producción y las exportaciones y distorsionan los mercados. Sin embargo, estos avances han sido insuficientes. Las barreras arancelarias siguen…

Economic Survey of Latin America and the Caribbean 2000-2001

This is the fifty-third edition in this series. The first part of the Survey covers the regional economy. It begins with a chapter dealing with the situation in the first half of 2001 and the prospects for the year as a whole. This was previously published separately with the title 2001: Current Conditions and Outlook. The analysis of the various aspects of the regional economy in 2000 consists of three chapters on macroeconomic policies and reforms, the performance of the internal economy and the external sector. The second part contains analysis of the economic performance of the 20 …

Guatemala: población y desarrollo, un diagnóstico sociodemográfico

Resumen La población de Guatemala es la más numerosa entre los países del istmo centroamericano, y aunque su ritmo de crecimiento medio anual ha disminuido en los últimos años, todavía se mantiene elevado y es sólo ligeramente menor que el observado en Honduras y Nicaragua durante el período 1995-2000. Ello ha sido el resultado de la persistencia de una elevada fecundidad -la más alta de la región latinoamericana- y de la disminución de la mortalidad, que contribuyó a una mayor sobrevivencia de la población. Como saldo neto de estos cambios, la población guatemalteca se caracteriza por su ex…

CEPAL Review no.75

This issue of CEPAL Review includes a special section to commemorate Raúl Prebisch in the centennial of his birthday, containing a selection of articles prepared by renowned social scientists involved with Latin American development thinking.…

Revista de la CEPAL no.75

Este número de la Revista de la CEPAL incluye un homenaje a Raúl Prebisch en el centenario de su nacimiento, con un conjunto de artículos de distinguidas personalidades de las ciencias sociales vinculadas al pensamiento sobre América Latina.…

Participación de los pobres en los frutos del crecimiento

La influencia del crecimiento económico sobre numerosos aspectos de la economía y de la sociedad constituye un tema muy frecuente en el trabajo de los economistas. Especialmente en la actualidad, cuando en la mayoría de los países de la región están en marcha profundas transformaciones económicas y sociales y al mismo tiempo se reconoce la existencia de grandes deficiencias distributivas y de vastos porcentajes de la población en situación de pobreza, se desea conocer la capacidad del crecimiento económico para afrontar tales problemas. En este artículo se trata el tema situándolo primero en u…

Participation by the poor in the fruits of growth

The influence of economic growth on numerous aspects of the economy and society is a frequently recurring topic among economists, especially at present, when profound economic and social transformations are under way in most of the countries of the region, while simultaneously there is an awareness that there are great shortcomings in terms of income distribution and that a high percentage of the population is in a state of poverty. A strong desire therefore exists to determine the capacity of economic growth to cope with those problems. This article begins by placing the issue in a conceptual…

Summary of "Report of Ad-Hoc Expert Group Meeting to consider recent Implementation Exercises of the General Data Dissemination System of the IMF

Trade, environment and development: implications for Caribbean countries

Introduction Trade and development issues have been the focus of economists, policy makers and international organizations for decades. However, environmental concerns have only come to the fore within the last couple of decades largely as a result of the work of scientists on, for example, climate change and loss in biodiversity as well as the lobbying activities of environmental groups, such as Greenpeace. The linking of environment to trade only gained international prominence since the negotiations for the Canada-United States Free Trade Area in the 1980s. However, although enviro…

The impact of privatisation on the banking sector in the Caribbean

Introduction With the failure of the import-substituting industrialisation policies of the post-war period, Caribbean countries shifted to an export-promotion strategy in the 1980s. Export promotion inevitably demanded a shifting of the relative price and productivity of tradable goods and services. To provide the necessary incentives for export promotion, countries pursued a mixture of reforms and restructuring to attract investment and to promote the competitiveness of production and exchange. The period also coincided with a shift in the development paradigm of the developed countri…

Application of the concepts of agro-tourism, agricultural diversification and food and nutrition for the development of Caribbean communities with reference to standards and priority setting

Introduction There is a renewed call for a new approach to development with emphasis on community empowerment or participation, with the belief that more sustainable activities will be undertaken in those communities. Much of that call, however, is coming not from within the communities, but primarily from advocates of change who may have little to do with those communities. What then will the new approach bring apart from a change in who are the decision-makers? And how do we ensure that the change that is called for will, in fact, bring added benefits to the communities themselves? To be sur…

Trade and investment flows between the Caribbean and the rest of the hemisphere in the context of the FTAA

Introduction The evolution of trade and investment flows between the Caribbean and the rest of the western hemisphere has been influenced by historical incorporation into the world economy and changes over time. The most important historical factor was the incorporation of the region into the international capitalist economy as producers and exporters of primary products and importers of technology, manufactured goods and finance. This pattern of specialisation and exchange led to exports of primary goods such as sugar,bananas and minerals (oil and bauxite);. Investment flows followed trade an…

Establishing social statistical databases for evidenced-based social policy formulation in the Caribbean

Abstract The paper presents the challenges and lessons learnt from the Project Development of Social Statistical Databases and the Methodological Approaches for a Social Vulnerability Index (SVI); for Small Island Developing States' (NET/00/035);, which was undertaken by the Social Development Unit of the ECLAC/CDCC secretariat. The Project aims to make available to social planners and decision makers in the Caribbean, a body of social statistics comprised of data sets being generated by national central statistical offices of the ECLAC/CDCC member States. The paper situates the Pro…