The case for debt-forgiveness for Latin America and the Caribbean countries

Resource transfer to Latin America and the Caribbean was negative throughouthe eighties. Debt-forgiveness would benefit not only the debtor countries, however. Lending countries and institutions would also stand to gain.     

Exchange rate volatility in Latin American and the Caribbean region: Evidence from 1985 to 2005

Using a total of 28 Latin American and Caribbean countries, this study finds a negative relationship between trade and exchange rate volatility. The econometric tool for this specific analysis is the widely used gravity model, in a panel data context. A similar condition is detected between inbound foreign direct investment and exchange rate volatility. The results of the study support the hypothesis that significant exchange rate volatility has a negative impact on the economies of the region and that achieving exchange rate stability should be a goal of policy makers in the context of Latin America and the Caribbean.     

贸易政策、出口和经济增长——基于拉美国家实证数据的研究

20世纪40年代起,拉美国家采取的是以贸易保护思想为基础的进口替代政策,70年代中期开始,大部分拉美国家开始了以贸易开放、资本开放为核心的“新自由主义改革”。本文首先对拉美对外贸易政策的沿革进行回顾,就拉美的“新自由主义”改革的实效进行了一个基本考察,在此基础上,通过计量模型详细探讨了拉美国家的出口和经济增长的关系。     

Globalization and school enrollment in a panel of countries

As the process of globalization has gained momentum in the past few decades, so too has interest in the effects of globalization on various socioeconomic outcomes grown. In this paper, I investigate the relationship between globalization and primary school enrollment. Both the economic globalization and social globalization measures from the KOF Index of Globalization are utilized in the analysis in order to capture the broad nature of globalization. The results of the panel data analysis indicate that there is a weak relationship between economic globalization and primary school enrollment, whereas the relationship between social globalization and primary school enrollment is both robust and highly significant. Examining the data by groups of countries indicates that relationship between economic globalization and school enrollment is positive and significant in Latin America and the Caribbean and in Asia, while it is weakly negative in Eastern Europe. The positive relationship between social globalization and school enrollment on the other hand is driven by countries in Latin America and the Caribbean and the Middle East and Africa.     

Remittances and Development in Latin America

Flows of workers’ remittances have become a major source of external finance for developing countries and are particularly important in Latin America and the Caribbean, where they are estimated to have reached $40 billion in 2004. Not surprisingly, academics, policymakers and development practitioners in general have been devoting increasing attention to the potential development impact that these flows may have on receiving countries. This paper contributes to this debate along four dimensions. First, it reviews the evolution of remittances flows to Latin America, using Balance of Payments data, and compares these statistics with estimates of remittances income based on Household Surveys. Second, the paper describes the varying profile of remittances recipients in ten Latin American countries. Third, the paper reviews the few macro‐ and microeconomic studies that have estimated the impact of remittances on poverty and inequality. Finally, the paper expands some of the existing works to investigate the extent to which that impact is different in Latin America and varies across countries in the region.     

From NAFTA to hemisphere free trade

Limiting NAFTA to only the United States, Canada and Mexico will have immediate and adverse effects on the economies of the Caribbean Basin and Latin America. The diversion of investment and trade alone will result in the shrinking of these economies which have been growing steadily for the last few decades. Bernai discusses the advantages of expanding NAFTA to include these overlooked regions and constructs a transparent and fair process by which these countries of diverse economic development could obtain accession.     

Jackson,Karl D., (Ed.), Asian Contagion: The Causes and Consequences of a Financial Crisis

The purpose of this article is to identify the extent of inward and outward foreign direct investment (FDI) worldwide. A large number of countries were aggregated on a regional basis to examine their inward and outward stocks as a percentage of gross fixed capital formation for the period 1980–2006. Among the findings was that the annual increase for both inward and outward FDI was less than 1%. Also, countries grouped by the aggregates developed, Africa, Latin America and Caribbean, Asia and Oceania, and developing were found to differ significantly in their means.     

How Do Migrants from Latin America and the Caribbean Fare in the US Labour Market?

This paper discusses the causes of mass migration from Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) to the United States in recent decades and how these migrants have fared in US labour markets. The evidence shows that LAC migrants have higher unemployment rates and substantially lower wages than other immigrants and natives. Furthermore, the relative wages of LAC migrants have been declining sharply over the last 25 years. The most significant factor explaining the latter is the lower (and declining) educational attainment of LAC migrants relative to other immigrants and natives, compounded by the rising rates of return to education in the US.     

Does Latin America Comprise Transnational ‘Subregions’?

We live in a world of nations, but also one of multi‐nation systems. These systems, or transnational regions, affect global economics, politics and diplomacy. Latin America is a widely recognised and documented transnational region. It contains subregional nation systems that might have all of the characteristics and significance of regions and might also affect the broader integration of Latin America. The author defines regionality on the basis of economic integration and measures it with two methods for Latin America, North America, three Latin American subregional systems and one arbitrarily defined nation system within Latin America. He finds a high degree of integration in Latin America, the Andean nations and the Southern Cone of South America. He finds only a modest degree of integration in North America and not significantly greater integration in South America than in Latin America. The division of Latin America into subregions is consistent with the incidence of sub‐regional trade initiatives in the past two decades and might be at least partly responsible for the limited progress to date towards Latin America‐wide integration. Latin American subregions might now be providing a foundation on which to build regionalism in the future.     

Book Reviews

Books reviewed: TAKATOSHI ITO and ANNE O. KRUEGER (eds.), Governance, Regulation, and Privatization in The Asia‐Pacific Region. ELHANAN HELPMAN, The Mystery of Economic Growth. DANIEL H. ROSEN, SCOTT ROZELLE and JIKUN HUANG, Roots of Competitiveness: China's Evolving Agriculture Interests JAMES J. HECKMAN and CARMEN PAGÉS (eds.), Law and Employment: Lessons from Latin America and the Caribbean.     

Intra-Industry Trade in Latin America and the Caribbean

An increasingly important component of total world trade is intra-industry trade (IIT). The large volume of literature on IIT is reflective of this importance. However, this extensive literature has focused almost completely on explaining the causes of IIT. This focus has left a puzzling gap in the literature. Specifically, it is almost impossible to determine the level of IIT for a particular country or region. Further, there is almost no information on the level of IIT at the industry level either globally or for a region or country. In this article we provide estimates of IIT for the world and for the countries of the Western Hemisphere. Further, we provide estimates of IIT for ten different SITC product categories on the same basis. The findings of the article indicate that in most industries, IIT in Latin America is substantially lower overall than the world average. There are, however, substantial variations observed both by country and by industry. Because the results are the first available for the region as a whole, they should allow researchers to get a better picture of the extent of IIT in Latin America and the Caribbean by country and by industry.     

Entrepreneurship in Emerging Markets: New Insights and Directions for Future Research

In recent years, the entrepreneurship and emerging markets research streams have intersected. Emerging markets provide an opportunity to examine entrepreneurship in different contexts and forms. This article discusses the current literature that interconnects both research streams in general, comments on the contributions of the articles published in the special issue on entrepreneurship and emerging markets in particular, and sketches out future avenues for research. These contributions span several theoretical lenses, including institutional theory, internationalization theory, transaction cost economics, and the resource‐based view, as well as multiple geographic regions, including China as the largest emerging economy and other countries in East Asia, Central Asia, South Asia, Eastern Europe, Latin America, the Caribbean, and the Middle East. We weave a discussion of the extant literature and these contributions inside three key themes: Emerging Markets and China's Uniqueness, Entrepreneurship in Emerging Markets, and Future Research on Emerging Markets Entrepreneurship. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Trade Integration and Revealed Comparative Advantages of Sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America & Caribbean Merchandise Export

This study examined the revealed comparative advantage (RCA) of sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) and Latin America & Caribbean (LAC) on the export of five merchandise subsectors (during 1995 to 2010) using the World Development Indicators database. Despite improvements observed, SSA’s and LAC’s trade share and economic integration are low. LAC has stronger RCA than SSA in export of food items though the gap in their competitiveness is not wide. The SSA region has higher RCA in export of agricultural raw materials, fuel, and ores and metals than LAC. Both regions have revealed comparative disadvantage in the export of manufactures, though lesser in LAC.     

Needed B2B marketing capabilities: Insights from the USA and emerging Latin America

Firms from all parts of the world are expanding operations globally in a turbulent economic context, requiring the understanding of nontraditional markets. Much attention has been focused on China and India, but researchers have neglected Latin America, a region economically as important as Germany, India, Japan, and South Korea. Latin America, as is true of many developed and emerging markets, has a strong presence of industrial ? or business to business (B2B) ? transactions. The configuration and convergence-divergence of marketing capabilities are relevant for the understanding of the globalization phenomenon. This study aims to examine B2B marketing capabilities of firms in Chile, Mexico and Peru (as Latin American countries), seeking conceptual issues in order to comprehend their business perspectives and contribute to the almost nonexistent body of research in this region. How do the results from Latin America compare with the USA? While the study shows directional convergence between Chile and Peru, there also is interesting divergence between all Latin American countries and the USA. The findings offer a portfolio of marketing topics that we believe are worthy of practitioner and academic consideration. We propose a model of convergence-divergence of B2B marketing capabilities across nations and state propositions for hypothesis testing.     

Changing production patterns,poverty, and the role of consumer unions: Some conceptual notes with reference to Latin America

The purpose of this paper, first presented in the seminar on poverty of the Thirteenth World Conference of The International Organization of Consumers Unions, is to introduce the work of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean containing a proposal for changes in the development strategy of Latin America in the 1990's (ECLAC, 1990a). A centerpiece in this proposal concerns the possibility to combine economic growth with social equity. In the first part of the paper, the main concepts in ECLAC's outline of a new development strategy are presented. The second part focuses specifically on the relationship between growth and poverty reduction. In the last part some ideas are launched to discuss what this might imply for the role of Consumer Unions in the context of development.

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Sich ändernde Produktionsstrukturen, Armut und die Rolle von Verbrauchervereinigungen: einige Überlegungen im Hinblick auf Lateinamerika

Zusammenfassung Ziel des Beitrages, der erstmals anläßlich eines Seminars über Armut der 13. Weltkonferenz der Verbrauchervereinigungen vorgestellt wurde, ist es, über die Arbeit der wirtschaftlichen Kommission der Vereinten Nationen für Lateinamerika und die Karibik und ihre Vorschläge zur Veränderung der Entwicklungsstrategie für diese Region für die 90er Jahre zu informieren. Kernstück dieser Vorschläge ist die Verbindung von ökonomischem Wachstum mit sozialer Gleichheit.Im ersten Abschnitt des Beitrages werden die Hauptkonzepte, die die Kommission bei der Analyse der Gründe für die Entwicklungsprobleme in Lateinamerika verwendet, und die politischen Vorschläge an die Regierungen der Region behandelt. Der zweite Abschnitt untersucht die Beziehung zwischen wirtschaftlichem Wachstum und Armutsbekämpfung und stellt dabei die Fähigkeit des Einzelnen, sozial sinnvoll zu handeln, und deren Förderung in den Vordegrund. Der dritte Abschnitt äußert einige Vorstellungen dazu, welche Rolle den Verbrauchervereinigungen in dieser Entwicklung zukommt.

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Rudolf M. Buitelaar is Economic Affairs Officer at the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, Casilla 179 D, Santiago, Chile.     

Impacts of Emerging Asia on African and Latin American Trade: Projections to 2030

Rapid growth in Asia's emerging economies has boosted export earnings of resource‐rich economies over the past decade. Whether or not those high growth rates continue, how will structural changes in Asia alter the relative importance of their imports of primary products? This paper projects production and trade patterns of Africa and Latin America to 2030 under various growth and policy scenarios in Asia, using the GTAP model of the global economy. We compare a projection assuming relatively conservative economic growth in China and India with a projection in which those economies continue to grow rapidly (albeit slower than in the previous decade). We then compare our conservative growth baseline with two alternative scenarios: one assuming Africa and Latin America choose to invest more in public agricultural R&D to take advantage of Asian import growth; the other assuming China and India dampen that import growth by restricting their imports of key food grains (following the historical pattern of economies such as Japan and Korea). The final section summarises the results and draws out policy implications for Latin America and Africa.     

EXPORT DIVERSIFICATION IN LATIN AMERICA AND THE CARIBBEAN

Beginning in the mid-1980s the primary development paradigm pursued by Latin American and Caribbean countries undertook a major shift from the concept of import-substitution-industrialization (ISI) to that of export-led growth and openness to international markets. Despite these efforts, virtually no research has been undertaken to assess the degree to which the export structures of Latin American and Caribbean countries have in fact diversified. This is unfortunate as the trade policy environment facing these countries is poised to undergo significant changes. The purpose of this article is to examine the structure of exports to the United States from 19 selected Latin American and Caribbean countries over the 1989 to 2000 period to assess the degree to which export diversification has occurred. The analysis is conducted at a reasonably disaggregate level using 2-digit HTS data. The countries included in the analysis provide a very interesting mix of commonalities and differences. The results suggest wide differences in the degree of diversification exhibited and suggest that these differences are related to economic size and social capability.     

Comprehending the outward FDI from Latin America and OCED: A comparative perspective

This study examines the determinants of outward foreign direct investment (FDI) from Latin American countries and compares it with their OECD counterparts. Our analysis is based on a sample of 45 countries, 13 from Latin America and 32 from the OECD, over the period 2001–2012. We find that the outward FDI from Latin America is more likely to be located in geographically proximate countries and in countries with similar culture and language than that from their OECD counterparts. We also show that Latin American outward FDI is less likely to be resource seeking. This presumably reflects the rich natural resource endowments and agricultural potential in major Latin American countries. Further, outward FDI from Latin America is more likely to be concentrated in countries with a similar corruption environment than that from their OECD counterparts. This might indicate a broadly similar nature of corruption across Latin America due to shared cultural, political and economic legacies.     

Culture and International Anti-Corruption Agreements in Latin America

This paper analyzes the likelihood that recent conventions against corruption signed by the OECD and the OAS will be effective in Latin America. It begins by looking at the cultural context of corruption in Latin America and examines efforts by Latin American signatories to implement both agreements. It then evaluates the extent to which these efforts will prove successful. It concludes with suggestions for the development of culturally sensitive policies that will be effective in the fight against corruption in Latin America.     

对中国—智利自由贸易区贸易效应的引力模型分析

近年来,区域经济一体化的进程不断加快,这是世界经济发展的必然结果。随着中国与拉丁美洲经贸关系的不断发展,中国已和智利、秘鲁和哥斯达黎加三个拉美国家签订了自由贸易协定,为双方的贸易带来了可观的收益,极大地推动了中国参与区域经济一体化的进程。本文在综述国内外相关文献的基础上,以中国与智利的自由贸易协定为例,采用引力模型,定量研究两国的经济一体化程度以及区域经济一体化所创造的贸易效应。