The Economic Survey of Latin America and the Caribbean 2014 looks at how economic growth in the region has been slowing since 2011, and the data available for the first six months of 2014 indicate that the region will not match the growth rate of 2.5% recorded in 2013. Growth has been muted over the first few months of the year, owing to stagnant gross fixed capital formation and faltering private consumption. Government consumption, on the other hand, has picked up, and the net contribution of exports has been more positive than during the same period of the previous year. A regional growth rate of 2.2% is forecast for 2014.
"Higher education in Latin America and the Caribbean has expanded dramatically in the past 15 years, as the average gross enrollment rate has more than doubled, and many new institutions and programs have been opened. Although higher education access has become more equitable, and higher education supply has become more varied, many of the 'new' students in the system are, on average, less academically ready than are their more advantaged counterparts. Furthermore, only half of higher education students, on average, complete their degree, and labor market returns to higher education vary greatly across institutions and programs. Thus, higher education is at a crossroads today. Given the region's urgency to raise productivity in a low-growth, fiscally constrained environment, going past this crossroads requires the formation of skilled human capital fast and efficiently. 'At a Crossroads: Higher Education in Latin America and the Caribbean' contributes to the discussion by studying quality, variety, and equity of higher education in Latin America and the Caribbean. The book presents comprehensive evidence on the recent higher education expansion and evolution of higher education labor market returns. Using novel data and state-of-the-art methods, it studies demand and supply drivers of the recent expansion. It investigates the behavior of institutions and students and explores the unintended consequences of large-scale higher education policies. Framing the analysis are the singular characteristics of the higher education market and the market segmentation induced by the variety of students and institutions in the system. At this crossroads, a role emerges for incentives, information, accountability, and choice."
The Latin American Economic Outlook 2021: Working Together for a Better Recovery aims to analyse and provide policy recommendations for a strong, inclusive and environmentally sustainable recovery in the region. The report explores policy actions to improve social protection mechanisms and increase social inclusion, foster regional integration and strengthen industrial strategies, and rethink the social contract to restore trust and empower citizens at all stages of the policy‐making process.
The Latin American Economic Outlook 2019: Development in Transition (LEO 2019) presents a fresh analytical approach in the region. It assesses four development traps relating to productivity, social vulnerability, institutions and the environment.
This publication is devoted to the evolving relationship between Latin America and China, as well as its prospects in the long term. China's transformation involves a gradual shift in its development strategy, including the rebalancing process from investment to consumption, the demographic transition, the structural transformation towards high value-added goods and services, and a "going-out" policy to approach other regions. This report lays the ground for discussing future trends in the relationship between China and Latin America, given these changing patterns. Based on the analysis of potential transmission channels of China's new model to the region, which include issues on trade, finance and skills, the outlook aims to identify strategies and policy responses for Latin America to overcome development challenges. Latin America and China can complement each other further and build a mutually beneficial partnership for development.
This publication examines the social impact of an unprecedented crisis. The effects of the COVID-19 pandemic have spread to all areas of human life, altering the way we interact, crippling economies and bringing about profound changes in societies. The pandemic has highlighted and exacerbated the major structural gaps in the region, and it is clear that the costs of inequality have become unsustainable and that it is necessary to rebuild with equality and sustainability, aiming for the creation of a true welfare state, long overdue in the region.
The 2018 edition of the Economic Survey of Latin America and the Caribbean, its seventieth issue, consists of three parts. Part I outlines the region's economic performance in 2017 and analyses trends in the early months of 2018, as well as the outlook for the rest of the year. It examines the external and domestic factors that have influenced the region's economic performance, analyses the characteristics of economic growth, prices and the labour market, and draws attention to some of the macroeconomic policy challenges of the prevailing external conditions, amid mounting uncertainty stemming mainly from political factors. Part II of this edition, which has three chapters, analyses the dynamics of investment and its determinants, with a view to identifying the different variables on which public policy can act to influence the trajectory of investment. Part III contains notes relating to the economic performance of the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean in 2017 and the first half of 2018, together with their respective statistical annexes.
In the 1990s, 'protection', 'import substitution' and 'intervention' have become dirty words, part of the 'leyenda negra' of Latin America development in the postwar period. This book attempts a fresh look at the controversial years between the end of the Second World War and the point when, at varying dates in different countries, a discontinuity occurs in which the postwar 'style of development' ceased to play a central role in the economic evolution of the region. The analysis is based on seven case studies covering eleven countries.
The Caribbean on the Edge offers frameworks for the study of policy issues facing the Caribbean and identifies a new way of thinking among those who influence public decision making.
