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Volume 2023, Issue 140, 2024
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Where next for Latin America? The two faces of the new Latin American capitalism
Author: Jorge KatzIn Latin America, “islands of modernity” associated with a new biological and digital paradigm in the exploitation of natural resources and the production of services and manufactures coexist with vast segments of the population mired in insecurity, poverty, stagnation and social exclusion. This structural dualism reflects a growing gap between a modern segment of society that emulates the behaviour patterns of developed nations and a segment that lags behind, in which labour informality, basic material deprivations and rising citizen insecurity predominate. The lack of an appropriate theory of development capable of examining institutional and regulatory fragility, the capture of State resources by large corporate groups and a lack of long-term policies reflect this internal divide. At the same time, the external divide with South-East Asian countries is widening. This article argues that a new social covenant is needed if growth is to be attained and income distribution is to improve.
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Informality, social protection and welfare during the COVID-19 crisis in four Latin American countries
Authors: Santiago Poy and Ramiro RoblesWe compare the effects of labour market shocks and social policy responses on people’s welfare following the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Uruguay. We assess the role of formal and informal sector labour incomes and social transfers in the changes observed in the distribution of income and welfare. We worked with harmonized household survey microdata and performed a microdecomposition analysis by income source. In all four countries, the loss of earnings was the main mechanism behind the loss of income, and developments in the informal sector were crucial in explaining the rise in poverty. The effects of transfer incomes on welfare varied by country in terms of both the size of their impact and their consequences for equity.
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Legal frameworks and specialized institutional frameworks for the social and solidarity economy in Latin America
This article analyses recent changes in social and solidarity economy (SSE) policies in eight Latin American countries: Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Mexico and Uruguay. It outlines the institutional rules that limited or added to States’ policymaking capacity, as well as examining progress on legislation and regulations and changes in specialized institutional frameworks. The information was obtained through an extensive review of documents and databases produced by government and academic institutions and social and solidarity economy organizations. The conclusion reached is that the concept has multiple interpretations, with specific characteristics in each country, and that it is being shaped and developed continuously. The article covers the different policy approaches to the social and solidarity economy, as reflected in legal frameworks, and also whether specialized institutional frameworks exist in the cases analysed.
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When RateMyProfessors met Google Scholar: students’ evaluations and professors’ looks and research
Authors: Rómulo A. Chumacero, Ricardo D. Paredes and Tomás ReyesWe take more than a million student evaluations of almost 200,000 professors from the RateMyProfessors website and link them with information on the research productivity of almost 3,000 professors in Google Scholar to provide a systematic characterization of the relationship between student evaluations and the characteristics of the classes, universities and professors concerned and to test whether students’ appreciations are conditionally related to research productivity. The study concludes that although how “easy” and “interesting” students consider a course to be are the most important determinants of their evaluations, there is a “looks” or “beauty” premium, with no systematic racial, age or gender component. Surprisingly, research productivity is either not significant or is negatively related to the assessment of a professor’s teaching abilities.
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The short-run consequences of the erosion of economic freedom for growth and institutions in Latin America: an unorthodox experimental review of the twenty-first century
Authors: Rafael Acevedo and María Lorca-SusinoHow economic growth can be improved is a question that has always divided researchers, but it is one of the utmost importance, bearing directly on prosperity, quality of life and human well-being. The research presented here is an experimental review whose purpose is to evaluate the causal effects that the erosion of economic freedom has had on the economic growth rate, corruption, democracy, the transparency of laws, media censorship and judicial constraints in 19 Latin American countries during the twenty-first century. The results show that for each percentage point erosion of economic freedom, the economic growth rate is between 0.3 and 1.6 percentage points lower the following year, while institutions deterioriate in comparison with those of countries where economic freedom has not been eroded. These findings confirm that a freer economic environment not only benefits these countries economically in the short run but improves other regional variables in the long run.
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Full dollarization versus monetary union: the case of Ecuador
Authors: Andrea Bonilla-Bolaños and Diego VillacresesThis study proposes using optimum currency areas (OCA) as a theoretical basis for analysis of the full dollarization of Ecuador, viewing the country and the United States as an informal monetary union. At least two facets of this are of interest: (i) the convergence properties of inflation rates between Ecuador and the United States; and (ii) the degree of vulnerability of the Ecuadorian economy to changes in United States monetary policy. Unit roots and stationarity tests are used to study inflation rate convergence, structural vector autoregressive models are used to examine the Ecuadorian economy’s vulnerability to changes in United States economic policy. We find evidence that inflation rates are converging ex-post the full dollarization of Ecuador and that monetary policy changes by the United States do therefore affect Ecuadorian macroeconomic variables. Moreover, we argue that OCA theory is potentially useful for studying fully dollarized economies.
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State aid and competition in the Dominican economy
This paper analyses the economic and social impact of a State aid programme designed to incentivize the development of the border provinces of the Dominican Republic. The intervention method chosen was based on tax exemptions, creating a possible tension between the objective of territorial cohesion and that of upholding market competition. In the competition sphere, the study analyses whether the law had the effect of increasing the market power of beneficiary companies. In the social sphere, it establishes a criterion of regional similarity and compares the evolution of the border provinces with that of other similar provinces. These procedures yield an overall measure of the impact of the initiative. In addition to assessing this particular case, the article contributes to the design of a methodological approach for the economic and social analysis of regional interventions.
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The young Raúl Prebisch and his 1919 translation of Adolph Wagner: clues to a relativist critique
Authors: Fágner João Maia Medeiros and Luiz Felipe Bruzzi CuriThis article analyses Raúl Prebisch’s earliest activities while still a young student at the University of Buenos Aires, between 1918 and 1922. One of these activities was the translation of texts by foreign economists for the university’s Revista de Ciencias Económicas, contributing to the dissemination of ideas in Argentina. We analyse Prebisch’s 1919 translation of Adolph Wagner and find indications that he modified the text, firstly by selecting for translation excerpts critical of the idea that free trade was automatically beneficial to all nations, secondly by omitting Wagner’s defence of the neoclassical deductive method. This selectivity of Prebisch’s, in our view, makes it necessary to amend the idea of him hitherto enshrined in the literature as a convinced neoclassicist during his early formative years.
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Effects of the Continuous Benefit Programme on the nutritional status and food security of older persons in Brazil
Addressing the needs of older persons poses public-policy challenges. The obstacles that the poorest older persons face in securing their livelihoods, compounded by physiological and metabolic changes and the presence of chronic diseases, make them more vulnerable. This study evaluates the impact of the Continuous Benefit Programme (BPC) on the nutritional status and food security levels of older persons in Brazil, using a fuzzy regression discontinuity design with microdata drawn from the 2017–2018 Consumer Expenditure Survey (POF). On average, participation in the programme is found to increase the probability that an older person will be food-secure, and to reduce his/her chances of suffering mild food insecurity. Although the objective of the programme is to reduce poverty, these findings can support the formulation of public policies that promote the quality of life of older persons, by acting on purchasing power, health and nutrition.
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Gross fixed capital formation in the Brazilian health sector: methodology and results for 2010–2019
Authors: Tassia Gazé Holguin, Thiago Miguez, Lia Hasenclever and Fabio FreitasHealth satellite accounts provide information to elucidate the interaction between the health sector and the rest of the economy. However, in Brazil these accounts have gaps, such as a lack of data on gross fixed capital formation. The aim of this article is to present a methodology to measure gross fixed capital formation in the health sector in 2010–2019 and to analyse the data thus obtained. The results show that gross fixed capital formation in the health sector is biased towards machinery and equipment rather than construction. The share of private investment increased throughout the period whereas public investment declined.
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