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After a history of dependence and dictatorships, Latin America is striving to find its own way to sustainable and equitable development by strengthening democracies and participation. Often urbanized and educated, the population is severely polarized in incomes and opportunities.
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Economic data: Living conditions in Trinidad and Tobago A commented picture of this exemplary tropical country of great economic potential, widespread poverty and ambitious policy choices. Essay: Trinidad and Tobago policies Energy Skill development Macroeconomy "In the economic sphere, the transformation process will involve diversifying the structure of production with a view to reducing dependence on the energy sector. While, admittedly, the energy sector will continue for some time to provide the main dynamic for growth and development, and while we must maximize our incomes from the exploitation of our hydrocarbon resources, the urgent requirement is for the development of a vibrant and viable non-energy sector, a so-called on-shore sector, to effectively fill the void, particularly in terms of revenue and foreign exchange generation, when the energy sector weakens, maybe in the next twenty to thirty years. It is in this context that the evolution of a dynamic
business sector, producing quality goods and services for the domestic
but mainly for the export market,
looms large. In a situation where with the march of globalisation
and market liberalisation trade competition continues to intensify,
innovation must be the key driver
in business sector development.
While the services sector and, in particular, its
financial services and tourism components, must continue to grow
and to explore and penetrate niche foreign markets, the transformation
process must assign a more important role to the agriculture sector.
This sector must be re-organized and reengineered to feed the nation
and free us from the dependence on imported
food supplies.
However, growth and expansion must not take place at the expense of the environment, which straddles the entire economy. We must always be mindful that the environment belongs not only to us, but, as well, to the generations to follow. We therefore have to cease polluting the air that we must breathe, through toxic industrial emissions; we have to reduce our emissions of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere and so play our part in the struggle against global warming; we have to cease polluting our water courses through indiscriminate and irresponsible dumping; and, we have to protect our water sources by, inter alia, ceasing the denudation of our hillsides through slash and burn and illegal logging activities. What we must aim for is responsible and sustainable growth and development."
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Essay: Latin America at a cross-road Most countries in Latin America and the Caribbean opened up their economies to foreign competition, de-regulated markets and privatized economic activities in search for faster productivity growth, higher international competitiveness and more equity in the distribution of the benefits of technical progress. The reforms have not delivered what they were supposed to deliver. For orthodox market-oriented economists the reforms have not produced the expected results because they have not been applied well, or deeply enough. For more heterodox economists there is a lot that needs to be re-examined in terms of 'proactive' government interventions 'constructing' dynamic comparative advantages based on knowledge if countries are to grow faster, significantly improving in terms of productivity and international competitiveness.
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Essay: South American Community of Nations - Comunidad Sudamericana de Naciones This new community might have one day a common currency, parliament and passports, similar to the European Union. The South American Community of Nations was launched in Cuzco (Ayacucho), Peru on 2004 December 9th. The Community of Nations is born of a union between the Andean Community and Mercosur (Southern Common Market), with the addition of the Caribbean coast nations of Surinam and Guyana. Member nations are Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Paraguay, Peru, Surinam, Uruguay and Venezuela. 2004 Statistics of the South American Community of Nations
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Economic data: Human development index (162 countries) Rich reports of reflections and data.
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Essay: Labour market in Peru: the transition path from unemployment to employment and the reverse High flows in and out of employment states make compatible a relatively low official unempoyment rate and the deepness of the social problem of unemployment.
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Essay: Mining Clusters and Local Economic Development in Latin America Is a development strategy conceivable for Latin America that has the region’s abundant natural resource base as its point of departure? What would such a development strategy look like and what would be its environmental and social consequences? The challenge seems to be to foster economic
activities related to the exploitation of natural resources, through
forward, backward or lateral linkages, since Latin America could
not attain development by exporting commodities.
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Essay: Mercosur evaluated A 2002 study on Mercosur, its policies, its effect on regional integration and a comparison with European Union experience
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Economic data: Inflation rates for 170 countries (1970-1996) Yearly dynamics of inflation is presented in one sheet. Is price stability a common feature of the world economies? Is hyperinflation a disease that hurts some groups of countries more than others? Discover the answers to these and many other questions just analysing the real data.
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Economic data: Exchange rates for 200 currencies, spanning across more than 20 years In one sheet you can track and compare the yearly dynamics of 200 world currencies on the long term. Currency crises, fixed exchange rates and wide fluctuations in a fully international perspective.
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Economic data: Education attainments in reading: a comparison of 35 countries with trends An exceptional survey in Argentina, Colombia and several other countries by IEA’s Study of Reading Literacy (PIRL), with microdata available. PDF [8 MB]
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Economic data: Comparable wages for 162 jobs in 132 countries The MS Excel file with a user-friendly interface of the excellent dataset by Freeman - Oostendorp. Long-term time-series from 1983 to 1999. This data set allows for comparison of wages across countries for the same job, over time, underlining the differences between skilled and unskilled works. MS Excel [2.9 MB]
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Essay: Tax base in developing countries How to increase the tax
revenue in developing countries? By enlarging the tax base the
fiscal burden would be better distributed, comprehending the large
informal economy which is so present in these countries. Unlike
in rich countries where informality is largely a result of the tax
burden, the informal economy in developing countries is largely
a result of high fixed costs of
entry into the formal sector. The tax burden is lower in developing
countries and the barriers to entry into the formal economy are
higher. Empirical analysis supports the results of this paper by
prof. Emmanuelle
Auriol and Michael Warlters.
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