Reduced Inequalities
Changes In the industrial development of Latin America
Trade liberalization, deregulation of economic activity, the privatization of public-sector production units and much more careful management of the main macroeconomic aggregates are causing profound changes in the behaviour of the Latin American economies. A more competitive climate is gradually spreading through the countries of the region as companies, markets and institutions adapt to a new micro- and macroeconomic scene. This article analyses the various types of modifications in the production structure of the industrial firms of Latin America, the variations in productivity, the systems of incentives and industrial organization, as well as the organization of labour and the trends of the changes connected with the factors of production.
Marginality and social Integration in Uruguay
Within Latin America, Uruguay stands out by its equalitarian income distribution, the solidity of its democratic institutions, and its level of social integration. Over the last decade, however, there have been signs of cracks in this desirable image which adversely affect the harmony of social relations. These cracks take the form of marginal behaviour: i.e., types of behaviour which are not governed by socially accepted patterns. In this study, the explanation for these types of behaviour has been sought in the divergences between cultural goals, the structures of opportunities for attaining those goals, and the shaping of individual capacities for taking advantage of them. A central premise of the approach adopted is that the factors determining marginal forms of behaviour build up their effects in a cyclical manner throughout the different stages of individual lives and from generation to generation.
Reforms in the oil industry: The available options
In the 1990s, a considerable number of countries of the region embarked on substantial changes in their regulations governing the oil industry, with the aim of doing away with public monopolies, promoting competitive markets, and encouraging increased private investment under new forms of contracts. These reforms had a considerable impact on the economic stabilization programmes, since they involved price corrections which helped to reduce fiscal pressures, as well as leading to the restructuring and financial reorganization of public oil companies.
Swerves and skids by the Venezuelan economy
Now that the neoliberal economic model, under whose sway Latin America is seeing out the present millennium, has been in force for several years, this is a particularly good time to take stock of the experience accumulated so far. Economists normally set about this task by breaking down and analysing the characteristics and components of the programmes applied in the various countries. An aspect which is often neglected in these assessments, however, is that of the social and political viability of the measures adopted, which does not only depend on their technical merits.
Non-market valuation of natural and environmental resources in Central America and the Caribbean
An inventory and assessment was made of 15 non-market valuation studies in Central American and Caribbean countries. Most utilized the contingent valuation method to determine willingness to pay for drinking water or protected areas. The method used suffered from a reliance on open-ended bidding, information framing and contingent scenarios lacking detail, limited population samples, and possible cultural-strategic biases associated with surveying local residents. Problems observed with respect to the single travel cost method study reviewed were a reliance on poor quality census data rather than visitor survey data, and unrealistic assumptions regarding transportation cost estimates, single-destination visitors, and consumer surplus levels of international visitors.
Apparel-based industrialization in the Caribbean Basin: A threadbare garment?
In a world of some two hundred countries, only a relatively few –mainly members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development– can be identified as “winners”, that is to say, countries with high and sustained annual per capita incomes in the order of US$ 20,000. Among other factors, some of the principal features of winner countries are that: i) they have been through an intense industrialization process, ii) they have projected that process into the international economy in the form of exports of manufactures, and iii) the leading national companies which have exported manufactures have been transformed into transnational corporations (TNCs) in the process. Many developing Asian countries have used the apparel industry as a springboard to deepen their industrialization process, especially by becoming suppliers of “full packages” to international buyers, involving the complete manufacture of apparel according to the designs provided by their international clients. For many Caribbean Basin countries, apparel exports represent their principal link with the international economy. In this case, however, since those exports stem from a low wageexport processing zone-special access package designed to help United States apparel TNCs to compete better in their home market against Asian imports, they do not produce the desired developmental results in the Caribbean. The United States apparel TNCs employ only those factors that allow them to improve the efficiency of their international system of integrated production, which are essentially the low wages paid in the case of the Caribbean Basin. Consequently, instead of deepening the local industrialization process, they truncate it. The exports do not represent the external projection of the local industrialization process, but merely the assembly of imported components. The local apparel companies are not internationalized in the process, but instead have their very existence threatened. Thus, as part of a developmental trajectory, these activities have worn threadbare and need replacement by something better.
Fiscal policy, cycles and growth
In Latin America, macroeconomic fluctuations have been more frequent and more serious in recent decades than in other parts of the world, and this volatility has adversely affected the development processes of the countries of the region. This article looks at the desirability of establishing economic policy rules, particularly in the fiscal area, to reduce the frequency and size of these imbalances.
Integrated water management from the perspective of the Dublin Principles
This article analyses the relationship betw een the Dublin Principles of 1992, integrated water planning and water law. The Dublin Principles were an attempt to concisely state the main issues and thrust of water management: fresh water is a finite and vulnerable resource, essential to sustain life, development and the environment; water development and management should be based on a participatory approach, involving users, planners and policy-makers at all levels; women play a central part in the provision, management and safeguarding of water, and water has an economic value in all its competing uses, and should be recognized as an economic good.
Income distribution, poverty and social expenditure in Latin America
Great social inequality has long been a frustrating feature of Latin American economic development. Not in vain has Latin America been described as the region of the world with the highest levels of inequality of income distribution. Although the prevailing levels of poverty are lower than those typical of other parts of the developing world, they are still extremely high and, taking the region as a whole, are higher now than they were before the debt crisis.
Competitiveness and labour regulations
This article analyses the relations between the competitiveness of an economy and the labour regulations in force in it. It is argued that economic theory is not conclusive regarding the impact of labour regulations on competitiveness, since different schools of thought maintain opposing positions in many respects. Moreover, empirical research has shown that the information provided with respect to these assumed linkages is not very relevant Various policy consequences follow from this: countries have a variety of strategies at their disposal and greater leeway that is usually suggested, since many policies aimed at improving equity do not necessarily involve any restrictions on competitiveness.
Best practices, policy convergence and the WTO trade-related investment measures
International experience shows that cost-free replication and adoption of industrial best practices on a universal basis is a misconception. Rather, it is a matter of a progressive and reciprocal adaptation between external and local practices in which learning costs and times are an essential factor. The potential for convergence of policies, practices and institutions triggered by globalization appears to be greater at the macroeconomic than at the microeconomic level. This article first examines such issues in a general way and then focuses on the dilemmas facing the countries of the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) and other developing countries of Asia in their efforts to comply with the World Trade Organization’s Trade-Related Investment Measures (TRIMS) by the year 2000.
How non-traditional are non-traditional exports? The experience of seven countries of the Caribbean Basin
In the six Central American countries -C osta Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua, which make up the Central American Common Market, and Panam a- non-traditional exports increased in the 1970s, went down between 1980 and 1986 because o f macroeconomic imbalances, armed conflicts and the crisis in the Central American Comm on Market, but grew once again in the second half o f the 1980s and the early 1990s.
The ongoing history of a Chilean metal products and machinery firm
Processes of adjustm ent and restructuring of the production sectors to a new system of macroeconom ic incentives are slow, costly and more inefficient than conventional microeconomic theory would lead one to suppose. In this article, the authors explore the process of the restructuring of production of a Chilean metal products and machinery company and the way it gradually modified its operations from the 1970s onw ards, adapting them to new macroeconomic and mesoeconomic signals. As is well known, in the last two decades the system of incentives and the regulatory framework for production activities in Chile have undergone profound changes, gradually moving -with advances but also setbacks-tow ards an organizational model more open to external competition, more deregulated, and with less public sector participation in the field of production proper.
First World and third World after the Cold War
This exposition is about the United States and the Third World after the Cold War. However, this matter can only be understood in the light of the long history of the relations between the Western countries –the centre of the world system– and the periphery. This history began at the end of the 15th century, when the Europeans, after a thousand years of defending themselves against invaders from Asia and Africa, embarked on their own era of world conquest.
Trade and growth in Chile
This study analyses the relations between the noteworthy performance of Chilean exports over the last two decades and the high economic growth rate of the country since the mid-1980s. It concludes that the Chilean experience may be described as a case of “export-led growth” rather than one of “growth-led exports”. What were the causes of Chile’s export success? Trade liberalization acted as an important stimulus, but this success was also due to other policies, both horizontal and sectoral: the exchange-rate policy followed since 1982, the introduction of drawback arrangements and export subsidies for exports of relatively minor importance in the mid-1980s, the use of a debt conversion programme to stimulate new production activities for the export of specific goods after the debt crisis, the active participation of the State in providing market information, and the substantial subsidies provided for the forestry sector. The next stage in the development of Chilean exports will be more difficult, however, and will call for more complex policies than the previous stage. Among the issues that must be addressed by such policies are the solution of market flaws in key activities (training and education, technical and marketing know-how, and the provision of long-term resources for investments in new activities not previously undertaken).
Tariffs and the Plano Real In Brazil
This article analyses the economic rationale of Brazil’s tariff policy during the first two years of the Plano Real. To this end, a study is made of the changes made in import duties for all the products traded. The tariff reform process in Brazil was begun in 1988, after the old Tariff Act had been in effect for thirty years, and represented a marked intensification in the process of trade openness, with the definition of a schedule of gradually decreasing tariffs which was further speeded up as from 1990.
Health management contracts in Costa Rica from a comparative perspective
This article analyses the recent establishment of quasi-markets in the field of public health in Costa Rica through the internal separation within the Costa Rican Social Security Fund of the functions of revenue collection, financing, purchasing and provision of services; the application of a new financing model; and the introduction of management contracts with hospitals and health areas as a key instrument for allocating and transferring resources in accordance with performance and fulfillment of goals.
On the conception of the centre-periphery system
Another view of the Latin American crisis: domestic debt
Closely linked to the external financing difficulties of Latin America is the problem of domestic financing and debt, a problem less studied and understood but no less important. In many countries of the region this problem has helped to delay economic recovery and discourage the accumulation of capital, and sometimes the steps taken to solve it can work against the programmes and policies designed to cope with the problem of the region’s foreign debt.
The ‘futures’ debate in the United Nations
In recent years the future of mankind has become the object of intense and lively controversy which has led to the construction of a number of ‘scenarios of the unacceptable’ and the proposition of various strategies for avoiding them. Of all the reports produced, Limits to Growth has had the widest circulation, notably contributing to the consolidation of the ‘futures movement’ by its dramatic emphasis on the perils threatening the ‘carrying capacity of the planet’. But the United Nations too has had different scenarios and strategies of its own, which it has put forward in such resolutions as those on the International Development Strategy and the New International Economic Order, directed towards the creation of a better society.