黄镇东率团访问智利巴西阿根廷

6月23日至7月9日,中共重庆市委书记、市人大常委会主任黄镇东率重庆市代表团先后访问了智利、巴西、阿根廷,并途经新西兰,带去了重庆人民的深情厚谊,增进了上述国家对重庆的认识和了解,务实推动了重庆与上述三国及双方企业间的交流与合作,访问取得了圆满成功。     

The monetarist experiment in Chile: A critical survey

Chile constitutes the most outstanding case of implementation of an extreme market economy model. During nine years, between 1973 and 1982, a model was implemented that for its ‘pureness’, deepness and extension induced a drastic transformation of the Chilean economy. The main features of the model are examined, focusing on the anti-inflationary policy, the reform of the financial system, and the external opening. Then the global results concerning output, income distribution and saving-investment are studied. The paper shows that the balance of the results was clearly negative during the 1973–1981 period: output stagnated, the concentration of wealth was spectacular, and saving and investment rates fell significantly. The characteristics themselves of the model and the weakening of the productive apparatus that they originated, additionally explain that the international recession was multiplied during 1982 within the domestic economy. The paper concludes with an attempt to interpret the main causes of the failure of this ‘experiment’.     

Purchasing power parity in Latin America: A co-integration analysis

Zusammenfassung Kaufkraftparit?t in Lateinamerika. Eine Kointegrationsanalyse.- Die jüngsten Entwicklungen der ?konometrischen Analyse und Zeitreihentechniken liefern neue Interpretationen vieler ?konomischer Theorien einschlie?lich einer der ?ltesten Doktrinen - der Kaufkraftparit?t. Der Verfasser testet, ob die Kaufkraftparit?t zwischen neun lateinamerikanischen L?ndern und den USA besteht, indem er einige der neuen Techniken einsetzt. Tests auf Nicht-Station?rit?t und Kointegration werden auf den nominalen Wechselkurs sowie das inl?ndische und das ausl?ndische (US-amerikanische) Preisniveau angewendet. Die Ergebnisse sprechen für die Gültigkeit der Kaufkraftparit?t zwischen den untersuchten L?ndern und den USA.

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Résumé La parité du pouvoir d’achat en Amérique latine. Une analyse de co-intégration. - Les développements récents aux techniques de l’économétrie et des séries temporelles approvisionnent des interprétations nouvelles à beaucoup de théories et, par cela, aussi à l’hypothèse de pouvoir d’achat (Ppa). Dans cette étude l’auteur examine les Ppa de neuf pays en Amérique latine en comparaison avec les Etats Unis en utilisant quelques-unes des techniques nouvelles. On applique des tests non-stationnaires et de co-intégration au taux de change nominal ainsi qu’au niveau des prix à l’intérieur et à l’étranger (Etats Unis). Les résultats donnent évidence de la Ppa entre ces pays et les Etats Unis.

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Resumen La paridad del poder de compra en América Latina: un análisis de cointegración. - Desarrollos recientes de la econometría y de las técnicas de análisis de series de tiempo posibilitan interpretaciones nuevas de muchas teorías económicas, incluyendo a una de las más antiguas, a la de la paridad del poder de compra (PPP). En este trabajo se hace un test de la teoria de la PPP en nueve países latinoamericanos frente al dólar USA utilizando algunas de estas técnicas. Se aplican tests de no estacionaridad y cointegración a la tasa de cambio nominal y al nivel agregado de precios en estos países y en los EE UU. Los resultados muestran evidencia en favor de la PPP para estos países y los EE UU.

     

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.     

Poverty,income distribution and child welfare in Latin America: A comparison of pre- and post-recession data

The traditional and external dependency of most Latin American economies and their recent pattern of growth has made them particularly vulnerable to the unexpected and severe changes of the world economy that began in 1979–1980. Even those countries with less open economies have been forced to seek adjustments to the new world situation that are, both in nature and consequences, essentially different from those of the interdependent industrial economies.This paper attempts to evaluate the impact of these recent economic changes on the living conditions of the populations of Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Panama and Venezuela. It is based on household data and is limited to those aspects of household living conditions that can be observed through the variables included in labour surveys. It analyses changes in overall income distribution, the movement of different socio-economic groups within the income pyramid and changes in these groups' livelihood strategies.     

The Structural Pension Reform in Chile: Effects, Comparisons with Other Latin American Reforms, and Lessons

Chile pioneered a structural reform in Latin America that privatizedits public pension system and influenced similar reforms inanother nine countries. Twenty-five years later, this articleevaluates the macroeconomic, microeconomic, and social effectsof this reform in Chile and the other countries in the region,and extracts lessons from those experiences. Fiscal costs ofthe reform have been high and prolonged, exceeded capital accumulation,and had a negative impact on national savings, but Chile's reformhas contributed to the development of capital markets; employer'scontributions were eliminated or reduced in half of the countriesand the worker's share in the total contribution averages 65per cent; competition is afflicted by a small number of administratorsand a high level of concentration; administrative costs arehigh and stagnant; capital returns are fair but declining; portfoliodiversification has been achieved only in Chile and Peru; labour-forcecoverage has declined in all ten countries, and gender and incomeinequalities have expanded. Footnotes ¹ E-mail addresses: aarenas{at}dipres.gob.cl; cmesa{at}usa.net     

Institutions and the Environmental Kuznets Curve for Deforestation: A Crosscountry Analysis for Latin America,Africa and Asia

The relationship between deforestation and income across 66 countries of Latin America, Africa and Asia is examined. Institutional characteristics as well as macroeconomic policies of each country are hypothesized to impact deforestation. Results show strong evidence of an environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) relationship between income and deforestation for all three continents. Institutional structure and macroeconomic policy significantly affect the tropical deforestation process. Improvements in political institutions and governance significantly reduce deforestation. The factors leading to deforestation differ across regions, however, and there is no one-size-fits-all global policy recommendation for restraining the tropical deforestation process.     

Synergies and competition: Export survival in Africa and Latin America

Using firm-level export data from six African (Burkina Faso and Senegal) and Latin American (Guatemala, Mexico, Peru, and Uruguay) countries, we examine factors that determine the survival of export flows. We explore the effects on export survival of changes in the number of home-country exporters serving the same destination, firm-level export diversification, and country-level factors. Unlike previous studies, we find that export survival rates decrease with the number of co-exporters selling the same product to the same country. We also find that the relationship between firm-level product diversification and export flow survival is hump-shaped: firms that do not diversify or are highly diversified have lower survival of product-destination flows. Our findings are robust to various alternative specifications. The main findings hold across both regions and all countries. However, the number of co-exporters negatively affects survival in Africa more than in Latin America.     

Stabilization policies and stagflation: The cases of Brazil and Chile

This paper is a comparative study of the economic stabilization policies in Brazil 1964–1968 and Chile 1973–1978. The periods chosen correspond to the first phase of authoritarian regimes whose avowed aim was to re-establish economic equilibrium and ‘put order’ in society in general, after severe disruptions caused by populist or socialist experiences.The economic policies of these regimes have been characterized as a radical attempt to apply orthodox tools in the context of semi-industrialized economies. Conventional wisdom has it that Brazil was the precursor in the orthodox experiments and one imitated by southern-cone countries in Latin America in the 1970s. Our study reveals deep differences between the cases of Brazil and Chile.The study discusses initial conditions, macroeconomic results, the use of monetarist tools, deviations from orthodoxy, the connection between stabilization policies and the long-term development model, and the effects of the policies on income distribution.     

Utilities Privatization and the Poor: Lessons and Evidence from Latin America

The perception that privatization hurts the poor is growing and creating a backlash against the private provision of basic infrastructure services. At the same time, governments are finding themselves fiscally strapped, searching for ways to finance the large investments needed to expand services to the poor. In Latin America, a laboratory for privatization, evidence exists which sheds light on the privatization experience. This paper analyzes the channels through which the poor might either lose or gain from privatization, examines the evidence accumulated on what has actually happened, and then discusses the policy options available to decision-makers who want to increase efficiency while at the same time dealing with the infrastructure needs of the poor that have been identified as being important for their welfare. In that context, the issue of whether welfare considerations should form part of the regulatory approach to privatized services is examined. The paper's major aims are to shed light on the issue of who can and does benefit from privatization of utilities, and to guide policy-makers in the choices.     

Latin American manufacturing and the First World War: An exploratory essay

In the 1960s many writers on Latin America accepted the idea that the conditions for industrial growth were most propitious when international commercial and financial flows were disrupted, as in the First World War. Recent work has raised doubts, however, about the extent of manufacturing expansion between 1914 and 1918, while drawing attention to the growth of industry in the 20 years preceding 1914. This paper, through a discussion of the secondary literature and a sampling of primary sources on five countries, seeks to explain why increases in production and profits during the war were not accompanied by significant new investment or a diversification of Latin America's industrial structure.     

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