The policy response of Latin America and the Caribbean to the adverse global economic scenario (2008-2012)

This chapter reviews three major external events that had an impact on the region between 2008 and 2012: (a) the 2008 food and fuel price boom; (b) the global financial crisis of 2008-2009; and (c) mounting international uncertainty from the second half of 2011. It also identifies the main macroeconomic, social and sectoral policies implemented by the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean to deal with the consequences of these events, which, unlike in the past, originated in the economic and financial spheres of developed countries. It would not be venturing too far to assert that this sequence of negative external shocks reached magnitudes surpassed only by the Great Depression of the 1930s.

Related Subject(s): Economic and Social Development