A century of economic growth in Latin America

This paper makes a contribution to the study of economic growth in developing countries by analyzing the six largest Latin American economies over 105 years within a two-equation framework. Confirming previous findings, physical and human capital prove to be key determinants of GDP per head growth. However, a more controversial result is an overall negative conditional correlation between trade openness and GDP per head growth — though openness has a positive link via investment. The evidence also shows that macroeconomic instability has been a drag on long-term growth in the region.     

Spectrum allocation in Latin America: An economic analysis

As elsewhere, wireless markets play a crucial role in Latin American economic growth. Mobile telephone networks increasingly provide the communications infrastructure that has largely been lacking throughout the region. Yet, governments have generally made only modest allocations of bandwidth available to Latin American wireless operators, either absolutely (in terms of spectrum each country could allocate at modest opportunity cost) or relative to countries in North America, Asia and the European Union. Using an empirical model estimated on mobile phone data for international markets, we show that very large social benefits are available to countries that make more spectrum available for mobile phone markets. We conduct simulations using our calibrated model to provide lower bounds for country-by-country gains from larger allocations. We also discuss the impact of alternative regulatory regimes on the feasibility to achieve those social gains.     

Financial deepening,trade openness and economic growth in Latin America and the Caribbean

This contribution investigates the causal interactions between financial deepening, trade openness and economic growth in 13 Latin American and Caribbean countries. We construct a composite indicator for financial deepening and use it to detect Granger causality within a modified Vector Autoregressive/Vector Error Correction Model (VAR/VECM) framework. We find almost no evidence for the popular hypothesis of finance-led growth. Evidence of bidirectional finance–growth causality is stronger but mostly instable in the long run. Most results indicate a demand following or insignificant causal relationship between finance and growth. There is also no evidence that finance indirectly induces growth via the channel of trade openness. Hence, policies that prioritize financial and trade sector development cannot be supported.     

经济增长与中拉贸易合作

近年来，中国和拉关地区的贸易额迅速增长。本文介绍了中拉贸易现状及贸易基础，重点对经济增长和中拉贸易合作之间的关系进行了分析。     

经济增长与中拉贸易合作

近年来,中国和拉美地区的贸易额迅速增长.本文介绍了中拉贸易现状及贸易基础,重点对经济增长和中拉贸易合作之间的关系进行了分析.     

Risks of Latin America sovereign debts before and after the financial crisis

We investigate the financial determinants of the return and volatility of sovereign CDS spread from six major Latin American countries before and after the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers. Other than CBOE VIX index, we also find that global factors including US Baa–Aaa default yield, TED spread and US Treasury rate all contribute to the changes in these sovereign CDS spread. Although global risk aversion (VIX) is a significant determinant of sovereign debt spread, in the years after the crisis, the emphasis has shifted towards short-term refinancing risk (TED). Furthermore, the risk of Greek sovereign debt crisis also transmitted Latin American CDS spreads immediately, but only in the post-Lehman sub-period. These findings provide implications for international bonds and credit derivatives trading strategies.     

Inflation and economic growth in Latin America: Some panel time-series evidence

In this paper we investigate the role of macroeconomic performance, mainly in terms of rates of inflation, in determining economic growth in four Latin American countries which suffered hyperinflationary bursts in the 1980s and early 1990s, but that also differ in terms of development levels. The data set covers the period between 1970 and 2007, and the empirical results, based on panel time-series data and analysis, confirm the anecdotal evidence which suggests that inflation has had a detrimental effect to growth in the region. All in all, we highlight the fact that excessive inflation has clearly offset the Mundell–Tobin effect and consequently the high costs that inflation has had on economic activity in the region.     

全球化背景下中国与拉美的经济合作

拉美地区幅员辽阔,资源丰富,战略地位十分重要.近年来,拉美地区政局相对稳定,经济适度增长,多元外交活跃,国际社会日益重视拉美地区的战略地位,中国与大多数拉美国家保持着全面、健康、持续发展的关系.     

中国拉美石油能源战略与拉美石油能源国有化

我国自20世纪90年代以来实施的拉美石油能源战略已经初现成效,但近年来,拉关一些主要产油国的石油能源国有化对我国拉关石油能源战略产生了强烈的冲击。因此,我国拉关石油能源战略在实施中应注重经济关系改善,巩固和扩大市场;淡化政治,突出合作的企业行为;采取多种战略组合开发模式,提高规避和抗击各类风险的能力。     

拉丁美洲1990年代经济改革特点--以墨西哥经济改革为例

拉丁美洲在20世纪90年代前后开始的全面经济改革,新自由主义属性显著。在这一过程中,墨西哥的新自由经济改革颇具代表性。因此,以墨西哥的加工贸易和国有企业私有化为例,分析拉丁美洲经济改革中的特点以及出现的问题。     

Elections, exchange rates and reform in Latin America

In this paper, we study the link between real exchange rate (RER) depreciation and elections in Latin America. Our contribution is threefold. First, we employ a statistical model that takes into account the pervasive conditional heteroskedasticity found in financial data and includes a wide range of macroeconomic variables as regressors. Second, we test whether the wave of central bank reform that swept the region has had any effect on the existence or strength of the electoral cycle in exchange rates. Third, we test an additional hypothesis, namely, that financial liberalization may also be an important variable explaining changes in electoral effects on the real exchange rate. In a panel of 9 Latin American countries with available macroeconomic data and a history of exogenous election dates, we confirm the previous findings that real depreciation intensifies after elections even when modeling the significant conditional heteroskedasticity in these data. We also show, for the first time in the literature, that post-election exchange rates are significantly less predictable. We go on to test whether central bank reform has influenced the way in which elections affect the RER in Latin America. If reform has been effective at reducing political manipulation of the exchange rate, then any relationship we see between elections and the RER before central bank reform should be mitigated in the post-reform era. We find that the relationship disappears after reform and that post-reform real exchange rates are also significantly less volatile. Finally, we show that financial liberalization seems to have a stronger effect on the conditional variance of the RER than does central bank reform, but reform has a stronger impact on the conditional mean.     

Latin America after the global crisis: the role of export-led and tradable-led growth regimes

Is the ongoing economic slowdown in industrialized countries likely to impact Latin American growth negatively in the medium- to long-run? This paper considers various transmission channels that work through trade in goods and services, and finds econometric evidence suggesting that shrinking global imbalances may create problems for Latin America. Specifically, using panel data analysis, we find that the trade balance as a proportion of GDP is positively associated with Latin American economic growth over the period 1953–2009. We then develop a simple dynamic model to help explain our main finding through investment and saving behaviour.     

拉美和加勒比海地区经济状况及前景

由于世界经济形势仍然有利于拉美和加勒比地区的发展,且该地区国家政府宏观经济政策调整渐显成效,2003年以来拉美和加勒比地区经济持续缓步增长.根据拉美经济委员会初步统计,2005年拉美和加勒比地区的国家经济在2003年和2004年分别增长了2%和5.9%的基础上进一步发展.国内生产总值增长了4.3%,人均生产总值增长了2.8%,呈现了连续三年经济恢复性发展的活跃势头.拉美经济委员会认为,拉美和加勒比地区国家经济正处于良好的发展周期.     

拉丁美洲国家养老保险制度改革研究

拉丁美洲国家在养老保险制度改革方面一直引领着世界各国的改革与发展.其改革的模式不仅影响着许多国家的改革,也影响了我国的改革,也是世界银行多年来一直提倡的模式之一.但是从其改革的预期和改革的实际结果分析来看,拉丁美洲国家养老保险制度实际上还存在许多问题.本文着重从拉丁美洲国家养老保险制度改革后的实际绩效与世界银行关于养老保险制度的改革目标之间的差距,来谈存在的问题及值得我们注意的经验教训,以供我们在深化改革过程中去借鉴.     

Convergence clubs in Latin America

The aim of this work is to identify convergence clubs in 17 Latin American countries in terms of GDP per capita during the period 1990–2014. To do this, we apply the methodology developed by Phillips-Sul in order to identify the different convergence clubs on the path of growth in the Latin American economy over this period. The empirical results strongly support the existence of convergence clubs, indicating that the Latin American economy consists of four groups, each converging towards its own steady-state path, with two countries being divergent.     

Convergence and divergence in Latin America, 1970-1998

This paper examines the process of convergence in Latin America over the period 1970–1998. There has been relatively little work on income convergence among developing countries in general and in Latin America in particular, even though many studies have examined convergence both within and among developed countries. There is little support for the convergence hypothesis over the sample period as a whole - although the beta coefficient is positive, it is insignificant. Convergence is strong in the 1970s but by the 1990s it has disappeared. There is no evidence of a narrowing in the cross-country dispersion of income (sigma convergence) for the sample period as a whole. The results offer little support for the neo-classical growth model - poorer countries have not grown faster than richer ones. There is a strong case for strengthening regional development policy.     

Heterogeneity,saving-investment dynamics and capital mobility in Latin America

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the dynamics of national saving-investment relationship in order to determine the degree of capital mobility in 12 Latin American countries. The analytically relevant correlation is the short-term one, defined as that between changes in saving and investment. Of special interest is the speed at which variables return to the long run equilibrium relationship, which is interpreted as being negatively related to the degree of capital mobility. The long run correlation, in turn, captures the coefficient implied by the solvency constraint. We find that heterogeneity and cross-section dependence completely change the estimation of the long run coefficient. Besides we obtain a more precise short run coefficient estimate compared to the existent estimates in the literature. There is evidence of an intermediate degree of capital mobility, and the coefficients are extremely stable over time.      

Severance Payment Programs in Latin America

Latin America stands out among different regions in the world for her high employment termination costs. To this contribute both a high level of severance payments and the existence of overlapping benefits. The effectiveness of these protective measures, however, is limited by the size of the informal sector, which, in turn, may be related to employment protection levels. Another important limitation on the effectiveness of employment protection regulation is the often large transaction costs associated with making good of law provisions for the worker. Equilibrium severance pay levels may thus be well below what law mandates as evidence of low coverage rates and undesirable side effects is mounting, reform seems a critical policy issue. However, this reform cannot focus exclusively on severance pay, but it has to incorporate other overlapping benefits, such as UISAs, and advance notice. It also has to contend with a problematic political economy. Jaramillo is a Senior Researcher at the Group for Analysis of Development, GRADE. Saavedra is with the World Bank. Authors are grateful to Eduardo Nakasone for superb research assistance. They also wish to thank participants at the World Bank’s International Workshop on Severance Payments Reform (Laxenberg/Vienna, 2003) for valuable comments.