THE CAMPESINOS' PERSPECTIVES IN LATIN AMERICA*

This article deals with the aborted attempts at land reform in Latin America during the 1960's and outlook for 1970–1980. It has long been evident to the sophisticated—and even to less alert—observers of the Latin American panorama that land reforms are both an essential prerequisite for improving the welfare of the hard-pressed campasinos (peasants) and a cornerstone of general economic, political and social progress.     

CABINET DETERMINANTS OF STRUCTURAL REFORMS IN LATIN AMERICA, 1985–2000

Little research has been devoted to the analysis of how different characteristics of the executives affect structural reforms. This article analyzes the impact of cabinet fragmentation and the presidential ideological position on the scope of structural reforms in nine Latin American presidential democracies of the postauthoritarian period. In so doing, it treats cabinets as conglomerates of actors that are accountable both to the president and to their parties, with nonpartisan ministers being only accountable to the president. It shows that the higher the percentage of nonpartisan ministers, the lesser the costs associated with bargaining a reform within the executive. When presidents build governing coalitions, they limit their capacity of acting unilaterally. However, they are better able to advance their structural reform proposals than single‐party governments are. Data on cabinet composition were collected by the authors and data on the dependent variable structural reform comes from Lora (2001 ).     

IMPORT LIBERALIZATION AND PRODUCTIVITY GROWTH IN INDIAN MANUFACTURING INDUSTRIES IN THE 1990s

Total factor productivity growth in Indian manufacturing decelerated in the 1990s, a decade of major economic reforms in India. Econometric analysis presented in the paper indicates that the lowering of effective protection to industries favorably affected productivity growth. The results suggest that gestation lags in investment projects and slower agricultural growth in the 1990s had an adverse effect on productivity growth. The analysis reveals that underutilization of industrial capacity was an important cause of the productivity slowdown. With corrections for capacity utilization, the estimated productivity growth in the 1990s is found to be about the same as in the 1980s.     

TRADE LIBERALIZATION AND PRICE‐COST MARGIN IN INDIAN INDUSTRIES

Using panel data for 137 three‐digit industries for 1980/81 to 1997/98, the paper examines the effect of trade liberalization on price‐cost margins in Indian industries. An econometric model is estimated to explain variations in price‐cost margins, taking tariff and nontariff barriers among the explanatory variables. The results indicate that the lowering of tariffs and removal of quantitative restrictions on imports of manufactures in the 1990s had a significant pro‐competitive effect on Indian industries, particularly concentrated industries, tending to reduce the price‐cost margins. The paper notes that despite the pro‐competitive effects of trade liberalization reinforced by domestic industrial deregulation, the price‐cost margin increased in the post‐reform period in most industries and aggregate manufacturing, which is attributed to a marked fall in the growth rate of real wages and a significant reduction in labor's income share in value added in the post‐reform period, reflecting perhaps a weakening of industrial labor's bargaining power.