For many countries, the acceleration of integration into the global economy and multilateral trading system provides an opportunity to access a wider range of goods and services as well as export markets, increasing their economic incomes, and improving the welfare of the citizenry. In particular, preferential trade agreements tend to increase export market access opportunities for the agro-industrial products of developing countries.
While increased market access offers many opportunities for enhancing the economic growth of exporting countries, developing countries are often unable to seize…
The Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) has provided a “strong answer” to what senior public officials across the Caribbean have been searching for in order to improve the budgeting process of public administrations, according to the participants of a week-long regional training workshop that provided officials with robust tools and techniques necessary for more effective management of public finances.
Public Expenditure Reviews (PERs) are intended to align public sector expenditure with the priorities of national governments. They also promote increased savings, ei…
It has been established for a long time that there is significant dispersion in prices charged for seemingly homogeneous goods. This may happen in competitive markets because the world is not frictionless, and certainly in other markets where price discrimination is carried out by firms with oligopolistic power. This paper is the first survey of the economic literature on price dispersion that addresses the following three key issues: i) its characteristics as a result of optimizing search behavior; ii) its relevance as a reflection of price discrimination and its consequences for social welfa…
The premature death of former president Néstor Kirchner is a great loss not only for Argentina, but for the entire international community. Kirchner was a friend of the United Nations and a national and international leader who firmly believed in true multilateralism.
A long and distinguished career in public service, which included being intendent of his home town Río Gallegos and governor of Santa Cruz, prepared him well for the challenges he would face early into his presidency. From 2003 to 2007, he boldly tackled the effects of the deepest financial and economic crisis in Argentina's hist…
This article examines the effects of globalization on the trade unionmovement in developing countries (the South );. It concludes, first, thatglobalization has been asymmetrical: much further-reaching for tradein goods than for capital flows, weak for technology transfer and verylimited in migratory flows. Second, it examines the role and economicrepercussions of labour unions. It finds that, contrary to the orthodoxview, these have little negative impact on employment but do significantlyreduce wage inequalities. In view of the shift in the South since the 1980saway from developmen…
This survey provides an overview of the economic performance of countries of the Caribbean
Community (CARICOM) for the year 2008 and their outlook for 2009. The report comprises
three chapters. The first provides a regional comparative analysis of the main macroeconomic
variables, namely GDP growth, inflation, fiscal and external accounts, as well as fiscal,
monetary and other policies, particularly those specifically devised to cope with the ongoing
global economic crisis. The second chapter deals with two topics relevant for economic
development in the region: economic growth and small and m…
This survey provides an overview of the economic performance of countries of the Caribbean Development and Cooperation Committee (CDCC) for the year 2007 and their outlook for 2008. The report consists of three chapters. The first chapter provides a regional analysis of the main economic indicators from a comparative perspective starting with a brief discussion of the principal events in the world economy. The second chapter deals with two selected topics that are pivotal for the economic development of Caribbean countries, namely public debt sustainability and competitiveness in the tourism s…
This survey provides an overview of the macroeconomic performance of countries of the Caribbean Development and Cooperation Committee (CDCC) for the year 2006 and their outlook for 2007. The report consists of three chapters. The first one provides a regional analysis of the main economic indicators from a comparative perspective. The second chapter deals with two selected topics of particular relevance for the economic development of Caribbean countries, namely remittances and migration, and natural resources dependency. The last chapter presents country briefs with the main macroeconomic dev…
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…
Abstract This paper presents a methodology for adjusting measures of income and poverty for the risk faced by a household. The approach draws on the standard economic concept of risk aversion, and it is based on the intuition that households will prefer a steady stream of income to a variable one with the same mean. Relying on a Constant Relative Risk Aversion utility function, we use panel data for Argentina to compute risk-adjusted income and poverty measures. At the aggregate level, we find that taking risk into account substantially increases the poverty headcount. Moreover, a regression …
Abstract We study the effect of fertility on maternal labour supply in Argentina and Mexico exploiting a source of exogenous variability in family size first introduced by Angrist and Evans (1998) for the United States. We find that the estimates for the US can be generalized both qualitatively and quantitatively to the populations of two developing countries where, compared to the US, fertility is known to be higher, female education levels are much lower and there are fewer formal facilities for childcare.…
The Report of the Secretary General of the United Nations on the implementation of the Millennium Declaration, entitled In larger freedom: towards security, development and human rights for all is a strong reminder of the need for an integrated approach to the various subjects considered therein, specially as they relate to the consolidation of democracy and of a durable peace. The subsequent establishment of the United Nations Peacebuilding Commission, has opened a promising instance for the contribution from different sectors to the fundamental task of post-conflict reconstruction. T…
The Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), Subregional Headquarters for the Caribbean and Secretariat to the Caribbean Development and Cooperation Committee (CDCC), is pleased to present the seventeenth volume of the Selected Statistical Indicators of Caribbean Countries (SSI). This publication represents a compilation of original nationally produced and officially published statistics on select indicators for the year 2003. Where available, 2004 and 2005 figures have been included. The aim of the SSI is to serve as a single source of Caribbean statistics on national…
The services sector has grown significantly in most countries and in the world economy as a whole. This has been observed in the progression from primary to secondary and/or tertiary sector-led economic growth and development. Services contribute significantly to output, employment and exports. They account for about 80% of the United States output (GDP) and about 65% of GDP of the European Union. Developed countries are the largest service exporters accounting for over 70% of services traded in the late 1990s. Although developing countries account for a relatively smal…
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 Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) is a pioneer in disaster assessment in the region and developed a methodology called DaLA to assess the damages and losses caused by disasters. Find out in this infographic what it is, how it works and what it is for countries.…
La presente publicación es un aporte de la Comisión Económica para América Latina y el Caribe (CEPAL), en respuesta a la solicitud del Gobierno de México, al quinto Foro Ministerial del Arco del Pacífico Latinoamericano y complementa el informe previo presentado a la cuarta reunión de dicho foro celebrada en Santiago en octubre de 2008. Este documento tiene por objeto brindar a los gobiernos una perspectiva actualizada del impacto de la crisis financiera internacional, tanto en los países asiáticos como en los latinoamericanos, sus implicancias para los futuros vínculos económicos y comerci…
Introduction
With its programme of assistance to the Caribbean, the Economic Commission for Latin
America and the Caribbean (ECLAC); Subregional Headquarters for the Caribbean has prepared
these economic profiles for 26 independent and non-independent countries of the Caribbean
subregion. These countries are: Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda, Aruba, the Bahamas,
Barbados, Belize, Bermuda, British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Cuba, Dominica,
Dominican Republic, Grenada, Guyana, Jamaica, Haiti, Montserrat, Netherlands Antilles,
Puerto Rico, St. Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, St. Vincent and the G…
Las dos comisiones económicas organizaron un seminario sobre la inclusión financiera conjunto con el Asian Development Bank Institute (ADBI), The Asia Foundation (AF), Alliance for Financial Inclusion (AFI) y el Center for Internacional Financial Cooperation (CIFC) del Korean Institute of Finance.…
The Caribbean region remains highly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. In order to assess the social and economic consequences of climate change for the region, the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean( ECLAC) has developed a model for this purpose. The model is referred to as the Climate Impact Assessment Model (ECLAC-CIAM) and is a tool that can simultaneously assess multiple sectoral climate impacts specific to the Caribbean as a whole and for individual countries. To achieve this goal, an Integrated Assessment Model (IAM) with a Computable General Equilibrium C…