Distribution dynamics and convergence in Latin America: A non-parametric analysis

This paper examines the dynamics of income distribution and convergence in Latin America during the period 1960 to 2000. Our results, based on the intradistribution dynamics approach, reveal a “twin peaks” dynamics, which echoes findings reported for the OECD, the Asia Pacific Basin and worldwide. Notable differences, however, are found between the income dynamics in Latin America and in these other regions. Further, our findings indicate that physical capital investment and health capital serve to explain Latin America’s “twin peaks” polarization. Other factors, such as geographical proximity, trade openness and human capital, are also found to help explaining it to some extent. We gratefully acknowledge the helpful comments and suggestions of the referee.     

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.     

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。     

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.     

Closing the Technological Gap in Latin America

A main implication of C.E. Ayres tool-combination principle is that the goal of technical progress is best served by a non-proprietary, open science public policy. Joseph Schumpeter claimed that new combinations are consequential only when they have been successfully commercialized. The capacity to privatize knowledge is, moreover, a powerful stimulus to innovation. This paper reexamines the Ayresian and Schumpeterian positions using evidence from the Bayh Dole experiment. The Bayh Dole Act, which gave universities title to inventions resulting from federally-sponsored research, created a laboratory wherein the trade-offs between diminution of the appropriable knowledge fund (due to patenting) and incentives to commercialization can be appraised.     

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.     

The Capitalist Revolution in Latin America

This article argues that the business enterprise has evolved through successive stable organizational structures which correspond with instability for those falling outside its aegis. This is shown in the institutional and historical context of both managerial capitalism in the mid-twentieth century as well as the era of financialization that followed. Hence, the framework developed herein elaborates on the ceremonial characteristics of the business enterprise under money manager capitalism, and constitutes a contribution toward an updated going concern theory of the business enterprise.     

China's Economic Influence in Latin America

After decades of low‐level commercial interaction, China and Latin America significantly ramped up their economic relationship in the 2000s. China has jumped to first place as an export destination for many countries, and it is a major source of imports for all countries in the Latin America/Caribbean region. While not a major source of foreign direct investment overall, China has built a strong investment presence in certain countries, particularly in the natural resource and infrastructure sectors. China's influence in Latin America has presented a great opportunity for many countries, but it has also brought new risks. Three main challenges face the region: how to mitigate the impacts of increased commodity concentration as a result of China's strong demand for natural resources; how to avoid other natural resource curse effects; and how to manage the tapering of this growth. Latin American countries' relationships with China vary widely, so there is no single, coordinated regional response.     

Microfinance Control Fraud in Latin America

Over the past three decades, the global microfinance industry has witnessed phenomenal growth in terms of the numbers of borrowers and the total gross loan portfolio outstanding. An application of the criminologists' perspective and Black's theory of control fraud to the global microfinance industry reveals a high degree of overlap between the common characteristics of control frauds and the characteristics of the microfinance industry and suggests that the sector provides a criminogenic environment suitable to Ponzi-type dynamics, including an imperative of growth, misrepresentation of financial and operating performance, a reputation for integrity and innovativeness, concentration in unregulated markets and areas most conducive to accounting fraud, non-transparency and secrecy, dubious accounting methods, lobbying in favor of deregulation, attempts to suborn controls such as accountants, lawyers, regulators, and rating agencies, executive use of the company for personal gain, excessive risk taking at the expense of investors' capital, warnings raised but ignored, and, finally, inevitable collapse. Regulatory interventions are needed to prevent predatory lending and over-indebtedness of poor microfinance borrowers in Latin America and elsewhere. Such regulation, while necessary to protect the poor, is not well liked by the investment community as it places microfinance institutions under local scrutiny, reduces the profitability of the sector, and limits opportunities for control fraud.     

Firm-level productivity in Latin America and the Caribbean

While the accumulation of factors of production, both physical and human capital, has helped Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) to narrow the income gap with developed economies, aggregate productivity is still relatively low. Although there are numerous determinants of aggregate productivity, it is largely based on the underlying productivity of all firms in the economy. Using firm-level data from several waves of the World Bank Enterprise Survey and Chile's National Manufacturing Survey, we explore the ‘what’ question on productivity dispersion in LAC. We document three stylized facts: (i) there are significant differences in firm productivity within industries – the firm at the 90th percentile of the productivity distribution produces almost seven times as much output (using the same measured inputs) as the 10^th percentile firm; (ii) productivity differences persist over time – regressing a firm's current productivity on its one-year lagged productivity yields an autoregressive coefficient of around 0.9; and (iii) most of the growth in aggregate productivity comes from improvements in the productivity of existing firms.     

Estimating Consumption Responses to Income Shocks of Different Persistence Using Self‐Reported Income Measures

Models of intertemporal consumption choice posit that consumption reacts more strongly to income shocks with persistent effects than to shocks with temporary effects. This prediction is tested using data from the Estonian Household Budget Surveys for 2002–07. Questions in the survey make it possible to distinguish between two income components of different persistence, using the individual households’ subjective income classification. Estimations confirm that households distinguish income components of different persistence and react to these differently; the consumption response to income shocks with persistent effects is significantly higher than the response to shocks with only temporary effects. Further analysis reveals, however, that consumption also reacts to lagged shocks to temporary income even when the households are not liquidity constrained, suggesting that their behavior is not fully consistent with the standard forward‐looking unconstrained consumption models.     

Short-run exchange rate uncertainty in Latin America

This paper to obtain an ex ante measure of exchange rate uncertainty in 11 Latin American countries. As a preliminary issue, the purchasing power parity (PPP) condition is tested using Engle and Granger two-step procedure and Johansen method. The argument is that exchange rate uncertainty could be lower if PPP holds in the long run. The expected exchange rate uncertainty is estimated according to an extended version of the autoregressive, conditionally heteroscedastic (ARCH) model. The results show that the ARCH adjusment produces more efficient estimates in seven countries and that the acceptance of PPP has little effect on exchange rate uncertainty.     

The poverty of democracy in Latin America

This paper reviews recent Latin American presidential elections as a means of examining the quality of democracy in the region. Its principal hypothesis is that, notwithstanding the claims of mainstream analysis, the (re)introduction of formal democratic procedure has not represented a meaningful advance in authentic, broad-based political and economic enfranchisement of the region’s working class and peasant majorities. In many cases the so-called democratic transition has merely disguised the adaption of previously authoritarian mechanisms of social control.     

Sino-European Trade Competition in Latin America and the Caribbean

The article studies trade in goods between China and the Latin American and Caribbean （LAC） countries and between the European Union （EU） and LAC during the years from 2000 to 2013. From the beginning of the 21st century, big changes in LAC＇s trade patterns have been observed. The article contains possible explanation of them. The analysis is based on the ECLAC （Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean） data. Merchandise trade between China and LAC grew significantly over the period from 2000 to 2013. In 2013, the value of merchandise exports from China was higher than from the EU-28 in the case of 12 LAC countries. Chinese imports of goods surpassed the European ones in five countries in the region. In order to increase its exports of manufactured goods and imports of natural resources and agricultural commodities, China combines trade arrangements with foreign aid policy. Besides, a rapid development of bilateral diplomatic ties between China and LAC is observed. The EU-LAC trade relations have worsened during the last decade mainly due to financial crisis and development of the EU-Asia trade relations.     

应吸取拉美国家城市化的教训

拉美一些国家过度城市化不仅没有推动经济持续健康发展及解决农业问题,反而使拉美各国陷入棘手的城市危机中.拉美城市化的经验教训为我国城市化发展提供了有益的启示.     

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.