CEPAL Review - Volume 1999, Issue 68, 1999

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).

The combination of rapidly increasing trade openness with sharp exchange-rate appreciation formed the context in which Argentine industry had to carry out its production restructuring process from 1991 on. The inability of the spontaneous market forces to spark off this process led the Argentine government to adopt a number of measures designed to correct the problem of relative prices and further the restructuring process through fiscal means. In this context, the Industrial Specialization Regime (ISR) was established with the main objective of promoting export specialization by industrial firms. This regime was based on a subsidy for incremental exports which took the form of access at preferential tariff rates to the importation of goods similar to those exported or forming part of a given production chain of complex goods. The aim of the present article is to make a theoretical and empirical analysis of this policy instrument (in its dual dimension of restructuring policy and export subsidy), examining its underlying theoretical bases, questions relating to its design, application and control, and finally, its effects on the industrial sector.

This article analyses five types of international trade based on the competitive advantages afforded to under-developed countries by their environmental resources endowment. First of all, specialization of such countries in the production of highly polluting goods and services is studied, recalling the conventional specialization in the production and export of goods making intensive use of natural resources. The commercial exploitation of the recreational services of natural parks and the exploitation of biodiversity in pharmaceutical research is then referred to. The use for profit of some environmental services involving these resources which are in the nature of public goods and which would require some type of bilateral or multilateral international agreement is addressed. The access of these countries on an equal footing to a number of global and common resources is then considered, and finally some conclusions are presented. According to these conclusions, it is hard for trade relations between developing and developed countries, based on specialization in the use of the endowment of environmental and natural resources, to provide any solution to the problems of poverty and environmental degradation. However, more efficient, more imaginative and, in the final analysis, more equitable exploitation of these resources could make a much bigger contribution to the solution of these two serious problems. In this case, in order to attain economic and social efficiency it is necessary to receive the collaboration of the advanced countries, in view of the fact that environmental resources are in the nature of public goods.

This article analyses the systems of regulation of the natural gas market in Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia and Mexico, which are the Latin American countries that have made most progress in this field, and it also presents some information on countries which had not yet defined their regulatory systems at the time of writing, such as Peru and Venezuela. First of all, it describes the situation of the natural gas industry worldwide and defines Latin America’s place in it. It then studies the changes that have taken place in natural gas regulation systems in the region in the 1990s, especially with regard to the treatment given to exploration and production, and industrial processing, transport and marketing. The main features of the natural gas markets in the countries studied are then described, as well as the systems adopted for restructuring the industry, with special emphasis on the role of natural gas in regional energy integration. Finally, the article analyses the main features of natural gas regulation and the principles underlying it; the structure and powers of the regulatory bodies; the mechanisms for fixing the prices of extraction, transport and distribution; the different forms of subsidies, and the tax regime.

Decentralization of social services is one of the central elements of the social policy reforms being carried out in Latin America in order to make the provision of such services more efficient and to strengthen the democratization processes. This article analyses the processes of decentralization of education in seven Latin American countries (Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Nicaragua). It seeks to systematize these experiences, using a theoretical typology of reform models; to present some results and trends in terms of the efficiency and equity of the provision of these services, and to extract some useful lessons for the design of future reforms. Although the models developed in the various countries differ from each other, they nevertheless have some common features: they depend on the resources provided by the central level to finance the services, and in many cases they subordinate schools to decisions taken at other levels. Among the main economic and social effects of the reforms are the limited progress made in participation and, hence, social efficiency; the ambiguous results obtained in terms of technical efficiency, and a trend which is not yet fully confirmed towards greater inter-territorial disparities in educational indicators. Among the lessons for policy formulation is the importance of giving the new levels of supply some degree of real autonomy, using a system of transfers which encourages a quest for efficiency while at the same time safeguarding equity, taking care to preserve the internal coherence of the models, giving some responsibilities directly to the schools, and ensuring that there is a suitable framework for the regulation and supervision of decentralized service supply systems.

Sectoral policies make explicit and implicit assumptions about the behaviour and capabilities of the agents (such as dynamic responses to market signals, demand-led assistance, collaborative efforts, participation in financing) which we consider to be rather unrealistic. Because of this lack of realism, policies that aim to be neutral often turn out to be highly exclusive. They fail to give sufficient importance to the special features of the sector –with its high climatic, biological and commercial risks and its slow adaptation– or to the fact that those who take decisions in agriculture are now mostly in an inferior position because of their incomes below the poverty line, their inadequate training, their traditions based on centuries of living in precarious conditions, and their geographical location in marginal areas, far from infrastructure and with only a minimum of services and sources of information. These people have only scanty and imperfect access to the markets which, according to the prevailing model, should govern decisions and the (re)distribution of the factors of production. In our opinion, this explains the patchy and lower-than-expected growth registered by the sector after the reforms to promote the liberalization of markets and external openness in the region. In view of the results of the application of the new model, it may be wondered whether Latin America can afford a form of development which excludes over half of its agricultural producers; what the alternatives are; and what costs and benefits each of them offers in terms of production and monetary, social, spatial and other aspects. The article outlines the changes in policies and their results at the aggregate level, summarizes the arguments usually put forward to explain agricultural performance in the region, and proposes a second set of explanations based on a description of the agents and the responses that may be expected from them, contrasting the latter with the supposedly neutral nature of the policies.