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- Volume 2020, Issue 131, 2020
CEPAL Review - Volume 2020, Issue 131, 2020
Volume 2020, Issue 131, 2020
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International financial cooperation to address the Latin American economic crisis
Author: José Antonio OcampoThe current economic crisis will be remembered, not only as the worst since the Great Depression, but also for the limited multilateral financial cooperation agreed, particularly for middle-income economies. Several Latin American countries have benefited from flexible and emergency credit lines from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), in addition to other IMF instruments. Members of the Latin American Reserve Fund (known by its Spanish acronym, FLAR) can access its resources. Multilateral development banks have taken steps to support Latin American countries, but resources are limited. The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and the Development Bank of Latin America (CAF) have reached their lending capacity limit and need to be capitalized. The World Bank has increased its lending to the region, but these loans amount to less than those granted in 2009–2010. The actions of the Central American Bank for Economic Integration (CABEI) are noteworthy, thanks to its recent capitalization.
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Mapping social conflicts in natural resources: A text mining study of extractive activities
Authors: Ramiro Albrieu and Gabriel PalazzoApplying text mining techniques, a methodology was developed to measure the number of social conflicts related to the exploitation of non-renewable natural resources. The study focuses on conflicts in four mining countries (Australia, Canada, Chile and Peru) between 2003 and 2016, based on more than 20,000 articles from the leading newspapers of each country. A statically significant correlation was found between the main index and mineral rents as a percentage of gross domestic product (GDP). However, the results should be interpreted with caution since endogeneity issues have not been addressed and the indices could be biased by various, country-specific factors. This study’s main outcome is a database with different indices of soft conflicts related to the exploitation of non-renewables natural resources and its media coverage in Australia, Canada, Chile and Peru.
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The ECLA technique of programming and economists in Argentina in the mid-twentieth century
Author: Mariano AranaThis article analyses the origin and development of the technique of programming of Jorge Ahumada, of the Economic Commission for Latin America (ECLA),2 and its importance for economists and economic development planning institutions. To that end, it examines the circulation of the technique in various organizations in Argentina and shows how planning gained legitimacy alongside the main economic policy debates of the mid-twentieth century, while describing the institutional circulation of experts and their texts in the country. The ECLA contribution was found to have a direct impact on local institutions, which reinforced the idea of accelerated growth with economic stability and contributed significantly to the theoretical training of economists in Argentina.
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Indicator of the efficiency of value added tax and income tax collection in Ecuador
Authors: José Ramírez-Álvarez and Paul Carrillo-MaldonadoThis paper outlines a methodology to measure the efficiency of revenue collection by tax administrations. The proposed methodology is aimed in particular at developing countries that do not have enough disaggregated information to measure tax gaps (registration, filing, veracity and payment) using traditional methods. The proposed indices are based on estimations of the structural balances of public finances, and rises in the indices can be interpreted as a comprehensive narrowing of tax gaps. The methodology is applied to Ecuador’s value added tax (VAT) and income tax, producing results that show that a more efficient tax administration leads to revenue growth.
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Growth and heterogeneity of human capital: Effects of the expansion of higher education on the income increase in Brazilian municipalities
This study analyses the effects of the expansion of the highly skilled labour force (higher education) on the per capita income increase in Brazilian municipalities. The results show that a larger highly educated labour force translates into stronger growth in the most developed municipalities with fewer opportunity costs, measured by wage differences. The reduction of regional inequalities fostered by the expansion of higher education over the past 15 years will become sustainable if the increase in the skill supply is accompanied by a rise in demand, so the opportunity costs between factors are reduced and the skill premium grows.
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Macroeconomic stability and economic growth: Myths and realities
Authors: Guillermo Le Fort Varela, Bastián Gallardo and Felipe BustamanteIn this paper, we explore empirical relationships between sustained GDP growth and macroeconomic volatility, using World Economic Outlook data for the period 1980–2015, both in descriptive statistics and in fixed-effect panel regressions (IMF, 2016). The results debunk certain myths, such as those that maintain that more inflation generates more growth, that stabilization carries real costs, or that large inflows of foreign capital stimulate growth. We show that inflation has a tangible negative impact on growth and that there are “inflation thresholds”, beyond which that impact increases. Higher inflation is associated with greater nominal and real volatility, defined as cyclical output volatility. Furthermore, current account volatility contributes significantly to real volatility. Lastly, we show that real volatility has a negative impact on trend GDP growth and that macroeconomic volatility does not contribute to growth or well-being.
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The manufacturing industry in Mexico: A history of production without distribution
This paper analyses the historical performance of the Mexican manufacturing industry based on the strategies that began to be adopted in the 1960s. It examines in particular the relationship between the productive increases driven by the opening of the market and the levels of economic well-being observed among people involved in this sector. The results of a sequential analysis of historical trends and estimates of production functions and distribution mechanisms suggest that the productive success of the manufacturing industry has only served to boost the economic well-being of companies and their owners, but not that of their employees or the wider community.
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Brazilian industry and knowledge absorption: Internal and external company determinants
Authors: Philipe Scherrer Mendes, Gustavo Britto and Ana Maria HermetoTechnological composition and productive diversification are distinguishing features of countries’ long-term growth trajectories. Investing in research and development (R&D), infrastructure and technology is a possible alternative for developing countries looking to accelerate their growth trajectory. In the case of Brazil, the production structure must be modified and productivity increased, by endogenizing technological advances, in order to narrow the technology gap. The factors that determine investment in absorption of external knowledge must be defined. To this end, a multilevel analysis was performed, based on microdata from the local unit section of the Annual Industrial Survey-Enterprise (Pesquisa Industrial Anual–Unidade Local) and the Survey of Innovation (PINTEC) (2008, 2011 and 2014) conducted by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE). The results bear out the theory regarding the internal determinants of firms’ innovative activities. Municipal determinants appear consistent with the literature only for “machinery and equipment” and “training” expenditure, while diversified spaces have little influence on levels of R&D expenditure.
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The determinants of life satisfaction among Chilean workers
Authors: Rodrigo Montero and Álvaro MirandaThis article puts forward evidence to identify the different domains that contribute to life satisfaction among a sample of Chilean workers, using the two-layer model developed by van Praag, Frijters and Ferrer-i-Carbonell (2003). The results show that satisfaction in the domains of money, privacy, leisure, family life, health and work have a positive (and statistically significant) effect on life satisfaction, when controlling for a variable that attempts to measure workers’ personality traits. The evidence reveals that the effects of family life, leisure, health and work outweigh those of money and privacy. Separate estimations were made by gender, age and educational level, to analyse heterogeneity in the relationship between degrees of satisfaction in the different life domains and overall life satisfaction. The results are robust to the different specifications used to explain satisfaction domains.
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Constant real expenditure policy: The macroeconomic impacts of budget composition and a primary surplus
Authors: Emerson Luís Lemos Marinho and Mauricio BenegasThis paper analyses the fiscal policy of constant real expenditure recently adopted by Brazil’s fiscal authorities. It also compares the policy of maintaining a primary surplus as a proportion of gross domestic product with that of changing the composition of spending in favour of investment in order to identify which of the two policies is more efficient in promoting economic growth. We investigate the effects of these policies on long- and short-term consumption, investment, labour supply and output and the reaction of the term structure of interest rates. We also analyse the relationship between these fiscal policies and welfare. We use a representative agent model of intertemporal utility maximization subject to budget constraint, with perfect foresight and an infinite horizon
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Nationalism and development: An alternative for Mexico
Authors: Gaspar Núñez Rodríguez and José Antonio Romero TellaecheThe most developed countries have generally had an active State, a driving, regulatory and protectionist State, among other roles, although the most consolidated concept seems to be that of a developmental State. In this paper, a social accounting matrix of Mexico is constructed in order to design a dynamic-recursive applied general equilibrium model to analyse and quantify the impact of policies that were promoted by the State; in particular, policies aimed at increasing private savings and subsidies for the consumption of domestic inputs. The implementation of these simple policies was found to have a substantial positive impact overall, from which important economic policy elements for a development strategy emerge.
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