CEPAL Review - Volume 1991, Issue 44, 1991

Industrial restructuring is a response of the industrial sector to a dynamic world. In open market economies, industries continuously adjust to technological change, to changes in fashion, and to changes in relative prices. It is a process that Schumpeter referred to as “creative destruction,” i.e. the replacement of outmoded products and production techniques with new products and techniques.

Equity has been a publicly endorsed norm since the achievement of Independence. Various researches have demonstrated, however, that in spite of this ethical and legal commitment, highly concentrated patterns of distribution of income, wealth and power, as well as inequitable access to State services, still persist in the region.

This paper presents several hypotheses on the social and political context of the application of the so-called structural adjustment policies and their effects on the social organization and patterns of conduct of the collective actors involved. The central idea put forward here is that, quite apart from the crisis (economic, social and sometimes political) which precedes and generally accompanies the application of these policies, they ultimately bring about profound and lasting changes in the social structure of the countries implementing them.

The social cost of the crisis of the 1980s and the consequent application of adjustments to the economy has been giving rise to a number of problems in the region which, together with the marked regression in the main vital indexes, are causing fresh social tensions in the systems of institutions as weli as taking other forms of expression too, despite the substantial advances made in the exercise of representative democracy in recent years.

A necessary condilion in order for Latin America to attain acceptable economic growth is the reduction of the negative resource transfer abroad. In addition to the reduction of the existing external debt burden, a substantial volume of fresh external financing is needed, but commercial bank loans will continue to be limited and official lenders can hardly satisfy all the region’s needs.

The intention of this article is to provide certain guidelines and experiences in an area that has been characterized by a good deal of complexity and confusion. Numerous business publications have presented the ease in favour of debt/equity conversion (DEC) programmes, usually from a simplified and orthodox macroeconomic perspective which justifies them in terms of the potentiai double benefit of both reducing the existing external debt (and therefore future debt service) and increasing investment (and therefore future growth) in struggling developing countries.

This article analyses the current interna) and external situation of the various countries of Latin America and poses the question of whether this situation closes the door on the growth prospects of the region in the 1990s or, on the contrary, creates conditions and opportunities for the restoration of growth.

This paper posits the need for a study in greater depth to identify the special features of the structurai heteroge* neity of the Latin American economies. Such a study is needed regardless of whether this phenomena is defined ultimately as the presence of marked inequalities in the productivity of labour between different sectors of the economy or whether the heterogeneity of the economies of Latin America is understood fundamentaliy as a significant relative lag of agriculture compared with other sectors of the economy.

This article aims to present some salient aspects of the reflections of the distinguished thinker José Medina Echavarrfa on the problems of peace, the cold war and the prospects for détente.

This article reviews the conditions that must be fulfilled by the countries of the region in order to tackle and solve their growing problems of pollution from industrial and urban wastes, and the role that should be played in this by industry, science and technology is analysed.

In the 1990s, we may expect to see the convergence of tendencies which had been developing in the 1980$ but which will now presumably have greater impact, interrelations and political relevance. What is involved is the intensification of international competition, increasingly based on the incorporation and spread of technical progress, within a context of generalized awareness of the economic and political importance of environmental sustainability.