This document, prepared by the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) Washington Office, presents and analyzes the most recent developments (first quarter of 2017) concerning capital flows to Latin America and the Caribbean.
The main highlights are:
- 2017 started with the highest monthly issuance on record for Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC)’s cross-border bond market, with total issuance reaching US$ 24.2 billion in January. Petrobras led the way, issuing a US$ 4 billion dual-tranche bond on January 9, encouraging other issuers to come to the market.
- Although…
Information generated from mobile phones can be successfully used to contain the spread of non-communicable diseases, as was recently done to stem the spread of the Chikungunya virus in the Caribbean. This opportunity was explained in the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) recently published report titled “An assessment of big data for official statistics in the Caribbean”.
The report notes that the use of big data through geospatial (or location) information was used to support healthcare, and to design social intervention measures to address …
For six years, the global economy has been driven by the U.S. Federal Reserve’s policies of easy money. Liquidity has flowed from developed to developing economies, financing infrastructure and corporate investment and allowing consumers to indulge in credit-fuelled retail spending. Thus the effective ending of the Fed’s third round of asset purchases (QE3) at the end of October represents both a watershed and the beginning of a new stage in the world economy. The end of asset-purchases comes at a challenging time for emerging markets, with China’s economy slowing, the Euro zone struggling to …
The global economic crisis has put an end to a period of worldwide expansion and halted the integration of Latin America and developing Asia with the international economy. Current and expected economic weakness in the advanced economies has led us to look elsewhere for sources of growth. Emerging economies in Asia and Latin America have increased their contributions to world production, finance, and trade in the past decades. In doing so, the two regions have deepened their economic ties with significant implications for the recovery of their respective economies. In this paper we discuss the…
In the third quarter of 2004, the positive interaction of external and domestic factors in the Latin American region created a favorable environment for capital inflows. Among the external factors, an unprecedented amount of global liquidity, combined with an environment of low risk-free rates and a search for yield, was one of the main driving forces in the third quarter. Liquidity and low rates benefited not only emerging market debt, but all risky assets, which have become highly correlated among themselves. However, in the case of emerging markets, and Latin American markets in particular,…
The liberalization of Maritime Transport is one important element to increase the export competitiveness of a country. In fact, studies remark that, for some countries, the effective rate of protection by the costs of transport is much higher than that of tariffs. One of the most relevant elements in the determination of the costs of maritime transport refers to the efficient management of ports. The global trend towards trade liberalization and integration and economic interdependence led Latin American countries to opt for programs of economic reforms that incorporated the participation of d…
Social protection systems have to cope with large
discrepancies between the financing needed to cover demand
and the resources actually available. For this reason, it is
necessary for any reform proposal to include elements of
cost restraint as well as measures to increase the population
coverage of systems. Efficiency and solidarity must improve
together if progress is to be made towards universality of
benefits. Any reform strategy needs to consider not only the
financial constraints imposed by the macroeconomy, but also
the heavy drain on financial resources and the effects on the
fiscal ac…
This article analyses the effects of the economic reforms applied by Latin American countries during the second half of the 1980s and after.In order to include the reform indices among the elements determining the per capita gross domestic product,in accordance with neoclassical growth models,the authors start by analysing the institutional nature of these reforms.The econometric analysis,carried out for a set of 17 Latin American countries for the 1970- 1995 period,revealed that the five reform areas studied significantly affected GDP.On the basis of empirical analysis,it can be concluded tha…
Developed countries have for a long time collected statistics on science and technology (S&T); activities and their contribution to development and have also focused on how interpretation of these statistics could inform policy. In addition, these indicators, as they are called, have been used to determine and compare the relative positions of the various countries in the global economy. For such comparisons to be meaningful, however, it was necessary to standardize the units and methodologies. That process led to the development and adoption of a number of manuals, namely, Frascati, Oslo …
Introduction The Netherlands Antilles is an autonomous entity within the Kingdom of the Netherlands and comprises a federation of five Caribbean islands: Bonaire and Curacao (the Leeward islands) which comprise 80 per cent of the population of 211,000 and Saba, St. Eustatius and the southern part of St. Maarten (the Windward islands). Like the other countries in the Kingdom, it enjoys full autonomy in internal matters as, for example, education, public health, justice and customs. It has a per capita income of about US$ 12,000. The Leeward Islands and the Windward Islands account for a…
Summary
1. The statistics offices in the region utilize state of the art technology for processing their trade data, and report producing statistics on a regular basis. The periods of publications are monthly, bi-monthly, quarterly, annually, and semi-annually, but vary amongst countries.
2. The warrants presented by importers and exporters to the customs departments for the clearance of goods is the main source of trade data in each country. After checking and processing, a copy of the warrants is placed in batches and forwarded to the statistics office, usually on a monthly basis.
In some co…
Summary Trade between Africa and South America is of relatively minor importance for each region. The main purpose of this report is to determine if a scarcity of maritime transport services could explain this comparative unimportance. More than half of all trade between the two regions is accounted for by just ten specific bilateral flows in petroleum, grain, iron ore, coal, and sugar. Almost all inter-regional trade moves by sea, mostly by non-liner charter shipping services. Trade between Africa and South America is subject to relatively low freight rates, mainly due to the type of produ…
Preface
This book is the result of a project developed by the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC);, with support from the Ford Foundation. The text encompasses five articles analyzing emerging economies that were generally rated as successful by international financial institutions and the financial press during episodes characterized by a broad supply of external funds. We include the cases of Chile, Korea, and Mexico in the critical years of the 1990s and Chile in the deep crisis of the 1970s. All these economies were praised for their efficient pub…
Abstract This paper analyses the competitiveness and technological structure of manufactured exports by leading Latin American and Asian economies for 1980-97. It explains East Asian performance with reference to the strategies adopted for technological development, focusing on foreign direct investment strategies. It particularly draws on the experience of Singapore, the countgry that has used FDI to promote industrial growth and technological upgrading more effectively than any other developing country. The paper starts by analysing the nature of technological activity in developing countrie…
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…
Abstract This paper has analyzed the changes in the distribution of income in Colombia since 1976 using data for urban economy (seven largest metropolitan areas) and for the manufacturing sector. Evidence is shown that the structural reforms that took place in the early 1990s have been related to higher income concentration in Colombia, where levels of inequality were already impressively high. The results suggest that both trade liberalization and skill complementary technological change have a positive impact on skill premiums. The evidence presented suggests that skill complementary technol…
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…
Representantes de agencias y programas de la ONU se reunieron en el V Foro Mundial de Datos en Medellín, destacando la importancia de los datos para el desarrollo global. El encuentro fortaleció la colaboración regional en estadísticas, promoviendo la producción de indicadores clave para los ODS y la planificación conjunta en cooperación técnica.…
What: Twenty-ninth (29) session of the Caribbean Development and Cooperation Committee.
When: 14 October 2022 (Opening ceremony at 9 am).
Where: The Royal Torarica Hotel, Kleine Waterstraat 10, Paramaribo, Suriname.
Background Information
Caribbean Development and Cooperation Committee (CDCC) Member Countries and Associate Members will convene for the 29th Session. Pursuant to resolution 358(XVI) of 1975, the CDCC was created as a permanent subsidiary body of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), to promote development cooperation among Caribbean countrie…
Statisticians from the statistical offices of over twenty Caribbean countries and overseas territories will soon be equipped with increased capacity in census planning, management and implementation. A four-day workshop organised by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), in collaboration with the Secretariat for the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), will take place in Kingston, Jamaica, from 8 to 11 April 2019.
Caribbean statistical offices will be carrying out population and housing censuses between 2020 and 2022…