The Current State of Business History in Latin America

Business history in Latin America has seen significant growth in the past 25 years, most notably since the beginning of this century. Although the sub‐discipline benefitted from seminal studies by British and U.S. scholars, most works of note are currently produced by local scholars. Latin American business history holds great comparative potential for business historians in other parts of the world undertaking studies in the areas of emerging economies, business‐state relationships, the role of entrepreneurship, business groups, entrepreneurial families, and foreign investment and imperialism.     

The experience of Latin America with export subsidies

Zusammenfassung Die Erfahrungen Lateinamerikas mit Exportsubventionen. — Vor ann?hernd 30 Jahren wurde aus den ?konomischen überlegungen zum Thema Exportsubventionen abgeleitet, solche Subventionen würden zu gr?\erer Exportdiversifizierung und -leistung fuhren. Die Erfahrung zeigt indessen, da\ das im allgemeinen nicht geschehen ist. Das lag — wie in diesem Aufsatz gezeigt wird — in den meisten F?llen daran, da\ die Exportsubventionen nicht durch eine liberale Importpolitik unterstützt wurden. Im Ergebnis verminderten die Exportsubventionen nur geringfügig die von der Importprotektion ausgehende Exportschw?che lateinamerikanischer L?nder. Zus?tzlich negative Wirkungen sind von sehr unstabilen realen Wechselkursen ausgegangen. Bemerkenswerte Ausnahmen mit guten Exportleistungen sind Brasilien, wo Exportsubventionen von einer Liberalisierung der Importe, einer beachtlichen Stabilisierung der realen Wechselkurse und anderen, exportfreundlichen Ma\nahmen begleitet waren, sowie Mexiko, wo zu den nur minimalen Exportsubventionen eine Abwertung, Stabilisierung und Importliberalisierung hinzukamen.

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Résumé L’expérience de l’Amérique Latine avec les subventions aux exportateurs. — Il y a prèsque 30 années que les économistes ont argumenté que les subventions aux exportateurs augmenteraient les exportations et que les exportations deviendraient plus diversifiées. Mais au contraire, l’expérience démontre que cette expectation n’est pas arrivée en général. Dans cette étude on a argumenté que la raison pour ce résultat est dans la majorité des cas que les subventions aux exportateurs n’étaient pas secondées par des politiques d’importations plus libérales. C’est pourquoi les subventions aux exportateurs réduisaient seulement un peu le désavantage pour des exportations causé par la politique en Amérique Latine. De plus, les taux de change réels très instabiles ont contribué aux résultats négatifs. Mais il y a des exceptions notables avec une bonne performance d’exportations: le Brésil et le Mexique. En Brésil, les subventions aux exportateurs étaient accompagnées par une libéralisation des importations, une stabilisation significative des taux de change réels et d’autres politiques propices aux exportations. En Mexique, les subventions aux exportateurs seulement peu importantes étaient accompagnées par une dévaluation, une stabilisation et une libéralisation des importations.

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Resumen La experiencia de Latinoamérica con subsidios a la exportación. — Casi 30 a?os atrás el razonamiento económico sobre subsidios a la exportación sugería que estos resultarían en una mayor diversificación y en un mayor volumen de exportaciones. La experiencia, en cambio, muestra que esto generalmente no ha ocurrido. En este trabajo se arguye que esto se debe a que, en la mayoría de los casos, los subsidios a la exportación no fueron apoyados por políticas de importation liberales. Como consecuencia, los subsidios a la exportaci?n redujeron sólo marginalmente el sesgo antiexportador de los países latinoamericanos. Efectos negativos adicionales sobre las exportaciones derivaron de la inestabilidad de las tasas de cambio reales (RER). Excepciones notables con un buen sector exportador son el Brasil, donde los subsidios fueron acompa?ados por una liberalización de importaciones, una significante estabilización de las RER y otras politicas propicias al crecimiento de las exportaciones, y México, donde subsidios mínimos a la exportación fueron acompa?ados por una devaluatión, una política de estabilización y una liberalización de importaciones.

     

The Finance–Growth Link in Latin America

This paper analyzes the relationship between financial development and economic growth in Latin America with a Granger causality test and impulse response functions in a panel vector autoregression (VAR) model. With annual observations from a sample of 18 countries from 1962 to 2005, it is shown that while economic growth causes financial development, financial development does not cause economic growth. This finding is robust to different model specifications and different financial indicators. Interestingly, when the sample is divided according to different income levels and institutional quality, there is two‐way causality between financial development and economic growth only for the middle income group and for countries with stronger rule of law and creditor rights. The impulse response functions show that a shock to financial development has a positive impact on economic growth only for these subsamples, but the net effect of financial development on growth is relatively small.     

Inflation and Welfare in Latin America

This paper follows Bailey (J Polit Econ 64:93–110, 1956) and Lucas (Econometrica 68:247–274, 2000) and estimates the welfare cost of inflation for 17 Latin American economies. We use annual data, from 1955 to 2000, and recent advances in the field of applied econometrics to estimate the inflation rate elasticity of money demand and report significantly high and differential welfare cost estimates for these economies.     

The Long-Term Impact of Health on Economic Growth in Latin America

Growth regressions adapted as Granger-type causality tests give strong evidence of 30-year causality from health to income in 18 Latin American countries. The health indicator is probability of survival by age and gender groups for 1950–90. A permanent increment of between 0.8% and 1.5% annual income is associated with typical adult and, surprisingly, old age health improvements. The channels of causation from health to income are diverse and need to be identified in microeconomic studies that should, however, include a wide variety long-term phenomena to account for the economic effects of health.     

Unemployment in Latin America and the Caribbean

This study constructs a new data set on unemployment rates in Latin America and the Caribbean and then explores the determinants of unemployment. We compare different countries, finding that unemployment is influenced by the size of the rural population and that the effects of government regulations are generally weak. We also examine large, persistent increases in unemployment over time, finding that they are caused by contractions in aggregate demand. These demand contractions result from either disinflationary monetary policy or the defense of an exchange-rate peg in the face of capital flight. Our evidence supports hysteresis theories in which short-run changes in unemployment influence the natural rate.     

Community participation for health: The case of Latin America

Current efforts at involving communities in health activities are analysed from a number of perspectives. Participation may be mainly aimed at easing resource constraints, through involvement in the implementation of health activities. Examples are the construction of health infrastructure, or the enlistment of community health workers — though in Latin America strong medical resistance to delegation has severely restricted their tasks. Participation in decision-making has been even more limited, with the exception of some small-scale NGO projects. Examples are next given of the differences that arise between projects with governmental or NGO sponsorship, or with a conservative or progressive orientation. Finally, the structure of the community, and the socio-political context in which it exists, are examined for the different constraints and opportunities they present to community participation for health.     

拉美城市化教训对我国的警示

目前,我国以农村向城市、农业向非农业流动为主导的城市化正步入快车道。根据国家人口发展战略研究成果,2014年我国城市化水平可能超过50％,2030年的城市化率达到67％左右;2025年前我国城镇化的年均增长速度会达到或略超过1个百分点,2025年后会逐渐放慢并低于1个百分点。当前我国城市化进程与当时的拉美国家存在一定的类似性,我们应认真吸取拉美城市化教训。     

The standard of living in Latin America during the twentieth century1

New and consistent series for Latin American real incomes, life expectancy and adult literacy over the twentieth century reveal that living standards rose most rapidly between the 1930s and 1970s, a period characterised by increased state intervention and reduced trade openness. Within the region, Brazil and Mexico advanced most over the century as a whole despite the early start made by Argentina and Chile, although convergence between larger countries was accompanied by divergence from smaller ones. There was no sustained narrowing of the income gap with the US at all between 1900 and 2000 but some convergence in living standards due to improved life expectancy. Our new estimates of regional per capita income also permit a clearer comparison with both Europe and Asia. The major advances in living standards achieved in the middle decades of the century were closely related to early industrialization, rapid urbanization, and the extension of primary health and education. Subsequent economic volatility and fiscal fragility limited further increases in living standards, undermining social consensus on development strategy.     

Trade Specialization in Latin America: The Impact of China and India

This paper examines the extent to which the growth of China and India in world markets is affecting the patterns of trade specialization in Latin American (LA) economies. We construct a measure of Revealed Comparative Advantage (RCA) by 3-digit ISIC sector, country, and year. This RCA accounts for both imports and exports. The empirical analyses explore the correlation between the RCAs of LA and the two Asian economies. Econometric estimates suggest that the specialization pattern of LA—with the exception of Mexico—has been moving in opposite direction to the trade specialization pattern of China and India. Labor-intensive sectors (both unskilled and skilled) probably have been negatively affected by the growing presence of China and India in world markets, while natural resource and scientific knowledge intensive sectors have probably benefited from China and India’s growth since 1990. JEL no.  F10, F14     

拉丁美洲：一个富有活力的市场

在经过“失去的1980年代”、“好不到哪儿去的1990年代”后，近几年，拉丁美洲进入了40多年来最好的发展阶段，拉美的经济增长强劲，通货膨胀得到控制，外汇储备稳定增长。根据联合国拉美经委会统计数据显示，2003-2006年，拉美的GDP共增长了17．6％，平均每年增长4．3％。早在20世纪70年代，中国就已经与很多拉美国家建立、巩固和发展了外交关系。     

The changing remittance behaviour of United States manufacturing firms in Latin America

An examination of the remittances made in 1966–1979 by US manufacturing firms operating in Latin America has clearly shown that intra-firm technology payments have been reduced in absolute terms since 1975. This has been a result of government regulations in this area. The total record of repatriated dividends and interest payments does not suggest a shift from technology payments to other normal types of remittances.Lower remittances have not resulted from lower overall earnings. On the contrary, earnings have been growing faster than remittances, have been mainly reinvested in the region and have led to higher investments in fixed assets. Such higher investment requirements in the 1970s can be explained by oligopolistic reaction to specific economic policies aimed at fostering the industrialization process with the participation of TNCs based not only in the US but also in Europe and Japan and to the less attractive prospects in traditional investment destinations.