This article analyses the Chilean government’s response to the 1999 recession that followed on from the Asian financial crisis, focusing on the macroeconomic policy reforms adopted and the institutional factors that influenced this response. The analysis is based on a review of previous research on the topic and suggests that some fiscal and monetary policies adopted during 1997−1998 exacerbated the effects of what were initially external shocks. However, fiscal discipline and the robust public institutions developed before and after the recession strengthened Chilean social protection policie…
This paper identifies potential for trade between Colombia and the European Union following the implementation of a free trade agreement as from 2013. Predictions of potential are based on estimates produced by the Poisson pseudo maximum likelihood estimator applied to a gravity model, controlling for unobserved omitted variable bias with exporter and importer time-varying fixed effects on a sample of 153 countries, from 1980 to 2012. Untapped potential is found in both directions of trade flows. The results could increase the effectiveness of trade policy and define companies’ expansion plans…
This study explores how deindustrialization is influencing the labour market in El Salvador. The variables under analysis are disaggregated by sex in order to permit an analysis of the differences in the ways that women and men react to deindustrialization. The results indicate that deindustrialization has led to a decline in quality employment and an upswing in self-employment, at the same time that the female labour force participation rate has risen and the male participation rate has fallen. This all occurred in parallel with the economic measures introduced in the 1990s and reflects the r…
This paper begins by reviewing the literature on the relation between economic growth and the functional distribution of income since the time of the classical economists, highlighting the work of Kalecki and the post-Keynesians who develop the growthregimes approach. It reconstructs and analyses statistics on the shares of wages, income from self-employment (or from mixed sources) and profits in Peru’s GDP between 1942 and 2013, and then compares these shares with the averages for Latin America and other economies. The study then makes a comparative analysis of trends in the wage share and ra…
The Latin America and the Caribbean region has an ambiguous place in the new geography of development: while it is a predominantly middle-income region, it is home to no more than 3% of the world’s poor population. Consequently, there is a risk that the international community will (mis)interpret this situation as meaning that the region need not be prioritized in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Nonetheless, the Sustainable Development Goals are not merely a strategy to combat economic poverty, but also a multidimensional strategy that defines a complex world map of priorities. Th…
In recent decades, Latin American countries have adopted more flexible exchange-rate regimes and set inflation targets. Several authors argue that some countries’ monetary and exchange-rate policies suffer from a procyclical bias, whereby central banks are reluctant to reduce interest rates when inflation falls, but are willing to increase them when inflation edges up. Therefore, the exchange rate tends to appreciate a lot and depreciate little. This paper analyses the asymmetry of the monetary and exchange rate policies of the five largest Latin American countries in which inflation targets a…
This article analyses ethnic discrimination in Mexico relative to Chile, Colombia and Peru from a perspective of horizontal inequality. It presents the numerous ways in which such discrimination is perpetuated and shows how far back in history segregation reaches, having taken root in the period of conquest by European nations before becoming entrenched in the colonial era and institutionalized in the constitutions that gave rise to the Latin American republics and in the formal and informal institutions shaped since then. Notwithstanding progress with recognition of political, social, cultura…
This paper investigates the effects of health-care expenditures on child mortality rates using a simultaneous-equation model for 93 developed and developing countries with data spanning the period 1995–2012. The findings show that health expenditure has a positive effect on reducing child mortality only for upper-middle-income and high-income countries, whereas for low-income and lower-middle-income countries, health spending does not have a significant impact on child health status. It is also found that at lower development levels, public health spending has a greater effect on mortality rat…
The opportunities for innovation that arise from natural-resource production are associated with the formation of knowledge networks that facilitate learning both within and outside the sectors in question. This article identifies the types of knowledge networks associated with innovation activities in the natural-resource domain using four case studies from the region: the livestock sector in Argentina, the mining sector in Chile, agriculture in Paraguay and forestry in Uruguay. The results show that, in all four cases, natural-resource producers form networks in which scientific knowledge is…
In this study, technical progress is analysed in terms of its influence on the mix of inputs of labour, capital and energy that go into the production of gross domestic product (GDP) and carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. The results of this analysis show that the Brazilian economy exhibited a Marx-biased pattern of technical progress during the period under study. Within the framework of this overall pattern, however, three different phases of technical progress in Brazil can be identified. Between 1970 and 1980, a Marx-biased pattern was observed, followed by the stagnation of technical progres…
En el último decenio, en los Sistemas Nacionales de Inversión Pública se ha despertado el interés por algunas dimensiones que van más allá de los estudios de preinversión, como la evaluación ex post, la evaluación de impacto, la equidad territorial y el riesgo de desastres. Todas estas dimensiones fueron analizadas por un centenar de expertos de los órganos rectores de los Sistemas Nacionales de Inversión Pública de América Latina en el Primer Congreso Internacional de Evaluación Social de Proyectos, realizado en Santiago del 20 al 22 de noviembre de 2017, cuyos resultados se presentan en esta…
En un contexto de intensificación y diversificación de los flujos migratorios en América Latina y el Caribe en las últimas décadas, caracterizados por un aumento de la inmigración intrarregional y la generación de nuevos corredores migratorios con distintos perfiles sociodemográficos, el presente documento analiza las características de la inclusión de la población migrante. Desde una mirada de la protección social y mediante el uso de encuestas de hogares, se analiza la información de siete países de destino: la Argentina, el Brasil, Chile, Costa Rica, México, la República Dominicana y el Uru…
En este documento se analiza la evolución del comercio de servicios, su reglamentación en los países centroamericanos y la evolución de las inversiones en materia de servicios, como una forma indirecta de observar el comercio en dicho sector. Los países centroamericanos han participado en las negociaciones internacionales para la regulación del comercio de servicios y han implementado normas regionales en esta materia desde la creación misma del mercado centroamericano. Algunas de estas normas han sido similares a las acordadas a nivel multilateral y otras han sido más profundas, sin embargo, …
Climate change is one of the greatest challenges of the twentyfirst century given its global causes and consequences and the scale of the coordinated efforts that will be needed to alleviate its negative impacts, adapt to new climate conditions and mitigate greenhouse gas emissions.
The primary aim of this publication is to provide a concise, graphic presentation of the basic assumptions and statistical data relating to the economics of climate change in Latin America and the Caribbean. This presentation of a set of stylized facts is intended to serve as a tool for improving the design, instru…
El propósito del presente documento es brindar una evaluación exhaustiva de la evolución de los gastos y los ingresos públicos en los países de América Latina durante las últimas décadas. Ello ha permitido señalar los desafíos que deberá enfrentar la política fiscal de la región, diferenciando grupos de países, políticas sectoriales de gasto y modalidades de financiamiento (principalmente tributaria).…
This draft report seeks to give an account of progress in the implementation of the priority measures of the Montevideo Consensus on Population and Development in the region, as well as the differences between countries in terms of the degree of implementation. By highlighting relevant national experiences, it also seeks to facilitate the exchange of good practices among countries so that they can benefit from each other in their efforts to advance the implementation of the actions of the Montevideo Consensus.…
Este documento, elaborado por la CEPAL, en colaboración con el Fondo de Población de las Naciones Unidas (UNFPA), se presentará en la Tercera Reunión de la Conferencia Regional sobre Población y Desarrollo, (Lima, 7 a 9 de agosto de 2018), cita en la que se abordarán, entre otros, temas como la situación de los migrantes, el envejecimiento de la población, la salud sexual y reproductiva, los pueblos indígenas y las poblaciones afrodescendientes. En él se busca dar cuenta del avance en la implementación de las medidas prioritarias del Consenso de Montevideo sobre Población y Desarrollo en Améri…