Summary
The purpose of this report is to analyse the factors that have determined the flow of investments in mining operations in Latin America and to evaluate the extent of such investments in the 1990s. This period is in clear contrast both with the 1970s, when investments were buoyant owing to nationalization and new projects that boosted State participation in mining operations, and with the 1980s, when investment flows were sluggish.
The surge in investments in the 1990s was part of the general trend towards economic liberalization and elimination of barriers to foreign capital inflows, m…
Summary Water management is akin to conflict management among human beings and between human beings and their environment. Water and river basin management systems are created to avoid, prevent or resolve such conflicts. Humankind needs to learn to live with these conflicts and deal with them adequately. All the more so since the relative scarcity of water will become ever more pressing as time goes on, as a result of economic growth, social demands and climate change. Competition between users will become ever more intense and ruthless, so that legislation and institutions to manage the syst…
Resumen El anteproyecto de ley es producto de la cooperación entre el Proyecto CEPAL/Comisión Europea sobre Promoción del uso eficiente de la energía en América Latina , a cargo de la División de Recursos Naturales e Infraestructura de la CEPAL, y la Dirección de Planificación y Economía de la Energía del Ministerio de Energía y Minas de Venezuela. En 1999, con el apoyo del Proyecto CEPAL/Comisión Europea se realizó un estudio del marco jurídico venezolano partiendo de la Constitución de 1961 y de las leyes relacionadas con el tema. Posteriormente, se actualizó ese estudio a la luz de la…
Resumen Los profundos cambios que el advenimiento de Internet, el comercio electrónico, la globalización de los mercados, así como los graves problemas para gestionar adecuadamente el transporte urbano, están provocando un nuevo escenario para el transporte, donde la tecnología se alza como una de las herramientas que permitirá mantenerse en un mercado cada vez más competitivo, tecnificado y profesionalizado, siendo la exigencia de información dinámica entre los componentes de la cadena productiva y logística, una de las principales preocupaciones de los nuevos clientes. La tan comentada bre…
Resumen A partir de la definición de segregación residencial socioeconómica como la ausencia o escasez relativa de mezcla socioeconómica en las subunidades territoriales de una ciudad, se elabora un procedimiento para cuantificarla de manera sintética mediante el análisis de la varianza. Al aplicar este procedimiento a diferentes escalas geográficas dentro de la ciudad (comunas, distritos, manzanas) se obtiene un indicador resumen de la segregación para cada escala, cuyo cotejo informa sobre la modalidad de la segregación. La aplicación de esta metodología en Santiago de Chile (usando informa…
Resumen Los jóvenes de la región tienen enormes activos potenciales, pero su realidad sigue marcada por la precariedad y la exclusión. Esa vulnerabilidad -que, si bien adolece de algún grado de transversalidad, tiene un correlato estrecho con la segmentación socioeconómica entre los jóvenes- se debe tanto a una lógica institucional y sectorial que ofrece pocos espacios a los jóvenes como a una dinámica vital marcada por procesos complejos, como la definición del yo y la puja entre emancipación y dependencia. En el marco de esta oposición, las conductas reproductivas se erigen como fuentes emer…
Resumen
La creciente importancia del territorio y la geografía en los procesos socioeconómicos, ha originado un resurgimiento del interés por la conceptualización teórica de los factores determinantes y la dinámica del desarrollo territorial.
En el presente trabajo se hace una revisión analítica de los marcos conceptuales que desde el siglo XIX basta el presente, se han ofrecido para explicar las causas y condicionantes de la evolución territorial al interior de las economías nacionales.
La exposición se inicia con los aportes pioneros de la escuela alemana Y las teorías - principalmente anglo…
Las relaciones entre industria y territorio constituyen una de las áreas de mayor reflexión en los últimos años. Bajo la denominación de distritos industriales, sistemas locales de empresas, clusters y entornos innovadores países tan disimiles como España, Italia, Portugal, Argentina, Brasil, Alemania, Francia y otros exhiben casos exitosos de interacciones entre dinámica productiva y territorio. Buena parte de ellos se concentran en describir y explicar los factores que detonan estas interacciones en territorios no metropolitanos. El estudio de caso que aquí se presenta es un análisis de est…
This essay summarizes some of the main ideas behind proposals for a new development agenda. It highlights first the need to strike a new balance between the market and the public interest, and to understand by public policies any initiative organized in pursuit of common goals, and not just State actions. The author makes five proposals for a new agenda: i); more balanced globalization with genuine respect for diversity, underpinned by a network of regional institutions; ii); a broad view of macroeconomic stability and the role of countercyclical policies; iii); the use of developm…
This article will focus on the central role played by imperfect or incomplete markets in the spread and perpetuation of recessionary situations. It is a known fact that demand volatility perpetuates such situations, and this can only be mitigated by sustainable economic stimulus policies. Macrofiscal rules, which are important for enhancing the tarnished credibility of State action, need to combine two basic principles: responsibility and stability. This means preserving regulation mechanisms so that excessive macroeconomic fluctuations can be stabilized. The best thing the authorities can do …
This article looks at the evolution of international competitiveness in the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean in the 1990s, focusing on the microeconomic and sectoral aspects. It evaluates the competitive performance of the region's countries, contrasting it with that of their main competitors in the developing world; it analyses the corporate actors involved, including the subsidiaries of transnational enterprises and large locally owned firms; and it sets forth some political considerations. Although progress has been made with competitiveness in the region, this has been lar…
Population, natural resources and domestic market size have been the traditional components of the equation determining the wealth of nations, according to classical economists. The new lines of research opened up by endogenous growth theories and the results of comparative statistical studies into the factors determining this growth have reawakened interest in the relationships between scale effects, market size and the role of international trade in the economic growth of small economies. At a time of ever-increasing globalization, these economies are being confronted with a number of challe…
The entry of China into the World Trade Organization, if it takes place, will unquestionably have a major impact on many nations. What is focused on here is the impact it would have on trade between the United States and the countries of the Caribbean Basin. The problems caused to the latter by Mexican membership of the North American Free Trade Agreement could be exacerbated by the shift of forces that would result from this new situation. The major expansion of textile and clothing exports from China to the United States that is in prospect would intensify the competition faced by the countr…
This article sets forth some reflections on the position of the region's countries and the different segments of their domestic financial structures in the international financial system. In the light of the financial globalization taking place in Latin America, it considers the circumstances of the largest countries in the region, looking beyond the stylized arguments of conventional wisdom to analyse different factors influencing the financial situation: sovereignty risk, financial globalization, the degree of financial integration, the cost of capital and the burden of country risk pre…
The banking sector reforms that the countries of Latin America undertook in the 1990s were an important step forward, but proved insufficient. Although it is true that the region as a whole progressed significantly, particularly in reducing the role of the State, and that market mechanisms and the regulatory framework in which banking institutions operated were improved, while at the same time the presence of foreign operators increased, it is no less true that most of the Latin American countries continued to experience systemic crises or severe banking instability. This shows that there are …
Following a conceptual analysis of the term quasi-market , this article will look at four national efforts to reform health-care management in what can be regarded, in respect of the degree of solidarity and universality applied, as three different health-care models. The changes in Chile are a continuation of the country's previous reform, which went further than any other in the region in undermining the solidarity and universality of the health-care model. The conclusion is that it would be beneficial to consolidate purely managerial aspects so that progress can be made with…
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…
In 1991, the Government of Chile began to pursue a new business development strategy. The Small and Medium-sized Enterprise Support Programme (Programa de Apoyo a la Pequeña y Mediana Empresa); provides for a number of instruments to correct market failures and improve the efficiency, productivity, competitiveness and international trading position of Chilean products made by these firms. The importance of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs); in the national economy is illustrated by their number and by the share of jobs they create. The particularly adverse experience of the economic cr…