Reduced Inequalities
The role of the State in Latin America’s strategic options
The 1980s have witnessed a strong revival of interest in the role of the State in the economic development of the Third World in general. In the case of Latin America, the debate has centered on the question of the role of the State in strategies for overcoming the imbalances and other factors holding back development. In the course of this debate, however, several related but distinct sets of issues have become intermixed in a manner which has proved to be highly unproductive. These issues must therefore be disentangled before sense can be made of the debate.
Significance and role of the universities: Medina Echavarria’s view
Medina Echavarria’s thinking on the subject of the University can easily be outlined. However, a detailed treatment implies the double task of dealing both with the variety of situations in Latin American universities and with the complexity of Medina’s thinking. Each of these tasks is difficult enough in itself; together, they constitute an almost insuperable challenge, at least for my abilities. I have therefore concluded that the most sensible method might perhaps be to examine what are or what were Medina’s main concerns with respect to the University, and the extent to which its subsequent development has met those concerns or to what degree they have lost their validity.
An economic policy for development
This article seeks to make a contribution to the conceptual review of economic policy design and implementation in Latin America. To this end, the author addresses three ropics. The first section is devoted to a brief analysis of a number of the factors behind the challenges now being faced, some of which were already in existen cepriorto the present crisis and some of which have emerged or grown more serious since it began.
Latin American youth between development and crisis
The cycle of structural transformation and the intensive policies of modernization and social participation through education brought about a number of changes in social structures which worked to the benefit of the young generations.
Address delivered by Dr. Raúl Prebisch at the twenty-first session of ECLAC
Mr. President, Mr. Executive Secretary, officers of the Session and participants in this Conference: Yesterday we listened to a memorable speech by the President of Mexico in which he referred in unequivocal terms to the need for a renovation of ECLAC’s thinking: a suggestion which is of course stimulating to those of us within ECLAC who are of the same mind.
Agricultural development and macroeconomic balance in Latin America: An overview of some basic policy issues
In this article the author analyses the evolution of the Latin American agricultural sector from a long-term viewpoint, centering on the relation between the evolution of various macroeconomic policies and that of agriculture in the region. Among these policies, he highlights the importance of domestic relative prices and the significant impact of policies relating to the form of insertion of the region in the international economy in the areas of trade, finance and production.
Economic restructuring in Latin America in the face of the foreign debt and the external transfer problem
There is a growing consensus in the region that the Latin American econom ies should become more efficient, more internationally competitive and less insulated from m arket forces, even if this restructuring is achieved through more pragm atic and selective instruments than those usually proposed by the Centre.
Urban employment; research and policy in Latin America
The past 15 years have served as a testing ground for urban employment policy research and design in Latin America, In this article the author analyses the major issues dealt with during this period as well as the main advances achieved in this connection.
The challenges facing Latin America in the world today
In this article the author analyses various long- and medium-term developments in the world economy and in the sphere of international economics and politics and explores their impact on Latín America. He then goes on to consider the regional scenario and, in particular, the current economic crisis, with special attention being devoted to the efforts made by Latin America to improve its present position.
ECLAC: Forty years of continuity with change
Before all else, I would like to express our heartfelt appreciation to the government and people of Brazil for welcoming us to this beautiful and hospitable city. It has been 35 years since our highest intergovernmental forum last met here, but in no way does this mean that ECLAC has been foreign to the Brazilian experience. On the contrary, it has been our privilege to follow the evolution of the Brazilian economy with the greatest interest, particularly through the ECLAC office which has been functioning in this country since 1968 with the support of the government. Brazil, a melting pot of the most varied historical legacies, has enormously enriched our store of knowledge by, for example, pointing the way to a form of industrialization oriented towards world trade flows.
Central America: Bases for a reactivation and development policy
Since the beginning of the present decade, and not withstanding a slight revival recorded in the majority of countries in 1984, Central America has been sunk in the deepest economic depression and shaken by the most serious political upheavals of the last half-century. The climate of instability and confusion which is prevailing seriously hampers the search for solutions to political as well as social and economic problems, yet the search for such solutions is the greatest challenge facing Central Americans today, and one which cannot be put off any longer.
The imperfections of the capital market
The classical theory of capital is based on an ideal functioning of markets and assumes that economies have a great capacity for adjustment, goods being easily substitutable, supplies relatively elastic, prices flexible and markets composed of a large number of individuals. Nevertheless, most underdeveloped economies exhibit traits far removed from such assumptions. Are these traits important enough to modify the results of the classical model and explain the imperfections of the capital market? The author answers this question on the basis of a number of central concepts and the experience of the Colombian economy.
Population and the labour force in Latin America: Some simulation exercises
In Latin America due importance has not been attached to the problems deriving from population growth, and although it is not a matter of promoting a new malthusianism, attention should be drawn to the challenges with which the countries of the region will be faced if current population trends continue in the next few decades. Suffice it to point out that should this happen, Latin America would have more than 700 million inhabitants by the end of the century and over 6 000 million in a hundred years’ time; that is, its population would be 20 times as big as at present, and one and half times as large as the entire population of the world today.
Participation: The view from above
Past experience shows that efforts to increase the participation of the excluded groups are usually based oil mistaken, and often niyihical ideas regarding development, democracy, the State and the people themselves.
The international financial crisis: Diagnoses and prescriptions
The public in general, and oiten even economists themselves, feel confused by the wide variety of proposals for solving the international crisis that have been put forward in academic and political circles.
Notes on trade from the standpoint of the periphery
The necessity of generating foreign exchange in order to pay off interest on the external debt once again brings to the fore the topic of centre/periphery trade relations, of their implicit potential, and of the obstacles that hamper them.
Planning for a fresh social and economic dynamic: Latin American and Caribbean Institute for Economic and Social Planning.
In its simplest expression, this document is based on three premises. The first of these is that planning is capable of playing a major role in consolidating the State, considered as the political manifestation of each Nation. The second is that this role may be shared out within the organizational or administrative structure of each State, and that it is desirable for it to be organized by a highranking institutional body, which, for the purposes of this document, will be generically termed the NPB or National Planning Body. The third premise is that the role played by ILPES in the near future — as at one and the same time a multilateral agency of the United Nations system and an intergovernmental agency— will have as its overall framework the priorities identified in the region in respect of the issues covered by the first two premises.
Crisis and development in Latin America and the Caribbean
At its twentieth session, held in Lima in April 1984, the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean decided, inter alia, that at the 1985 session of the Committee of the Whole one of the main items should be “the examination of those pivotal aspects of long-term economic and social development policy which could serve as sources of inspiration for meeting the challenges posed to the countries of the region by the changes in the international economy”.
Social use of the surplus, accumulation, distribution and employment
This article explores the structural heterogeneity and the insufficient dynamism of Latin American societies, with special reference to the use they have chiefly made of the surplus.
Youth and unemployment in Montevideo
The crisis unleashed in 1981 has had a considerable effect on the work situation of young people and has exacerbated factors which had emerged before that time. The first discernible consequence is that young people are pushed towards the work market and this increases their participation rates. This widespread phenomenon is of great importance even in the case of women, who disregard traditional discriminatory obstacles and seek jobs. However, the supply of jobs has not met expectations, and there has been a sizeable rise in youth unemployment, in particular among first-time job seekers. The number of students also increases, because it is assumed that formal education remains an important asset in the search for work; similarly, there is an increase in the proportion of students trying to find work.