The Oxford Handbook of Latin American Economics

Latin America has been central to the main debates on development economics, ranging from the relationships between income inequality and economic growth, and the importance of geography versus institutions in development, to debates on the effects of trade, trade openness and protection on growth and income distribution. Despite increasing interest in the region there are few English language books on Latin American economics. This Handbook, organized into five parts, aims to fill this significant gap.

Part I looks at long-term issues, including the institutional roots of Latin America’s underdevelopment, the political economy of policy making, the rise, decline and re-emergence of alternative paradigms, and the environmental sustainability of the development pattern. Part II considers macroeconomic topics, including the management of capital account booms and busts, the evolution and performance of exchange rate regimes, the advances and challenges of monetary policies and financial development, and the major fiscal policy issues confronting the region, including a comparison of Latin American fiscal accounts with those of the OECD. Part III analyzes the region’s economies in global context, particularly the role of Latin America in the world trade system and the effects of dependence on natural resources (characteristic of many countries of the region) on growth and human development. It reviews the trends of foreign direct investment, the opportunities and challenges raised by the emergence of China as buyer of the region’s commodities and competitor in the world market, and the transformation of the Latin America from a region of immigration to one of massive emigration. Part IV deals with matters of productive development. At the aggregate level it analyzes issues of technological catching up and divergence as well as different perspectives on the poor productivity and growth performance of the region during recent decades. At the sectoral level, it looks at agricultural policies and performance, the problems and prospects of the energy sector, and the effects on growth of lagging infrastructure development. Part V looks at the social dimensions of development; it analyzes the evolution of income inequality, poverty, and economic insecurity in the region, the evolution of labor markets and the performance of the educational sector, as well as the evolution of social assistance programs and social security reforms in the region.

The contributors are leading researchers that belong to different schools of economic thought and most come from countries throughout Latin America, representing a range of views and recognising the diversity of the region. This Handbook is a significant contribution to the field, and will be of interest to academics, graduate students and policy makers interested in economics, political economy, and public policy in Latin America and other developing economies.

About the Authors

Carlos Scartascini

Jaime Ros
Professor of Economics
University of Notre Dame

Luis Servén

Augusto de la Torre
Chief Economist for Latin America and the Caribbean
World Bank

Nancy Birdsall
President
Center for Global Development

Leonardo Gasparini

Nora Lustig

Miguel Urquiola

Andras Uthoff

Francisco H.G. Ferreira
Economics Research
The World Bank

Victoria Murillo
Associate Professor of Political Science
Columbia University

Carlos J. de Miguel

Rob Vos
Director Development Policy and Analysis
United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs

Victor E. Tokman

Andrew Schrank

David Robalino

Osvaldo Sunkel
Chairman of the Editorial Council
CEPAL Review

Osvaldo Sunkel is Chairman of the Editorial Board of CEPAL Review and President of Corporación de Investigaciones para el Desarrollo CINDA. He was employed with the UN Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) from 1953 to 1968 and from 1978 to 2003 where he worked on development-related issues in several Latin American countries, especially Mexico, Brazil, Chile and Central America. He was a founding member and former director of the ECLAC office in Brazil and of the U.N. Latin American Institute for Economic and Social Studies (ILPES), where he directed the training and development research programs. He was a founding member of the Institute of International Studies at the University of Chile, and Research Fellow at the Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales (FLACSO). Mr. Sunkel has been a Visiting Professor at several prestigious academic institutions including the University of Paris, El Colegio de Mexico, the Max Planck Gessellschaft, the University of Texas (Tinker Chair of Latin American Studies), Duke University, University of California (Los Angeles) Georgetown University, and the University of Florida (Bacardi Eminent Scholar Chair); Formerly, he was Founder and Director of the Institute of Public Affairs of the University of Chile and Special Advisor to ECLAC and a member of the Academy of Social Sciences of the Instituto de Chile and Corresponding Member of the Colombian Academy of Economic Sciences. He is an author, coauthor and editor of over 30 books and 140 articles and book chapters that have been published in several countries and languages. He did his undergraduate studies in Economics and Business Administration at the University of Chile and graduate studies at the London School of Economics and Political Science.

Rebeca Grynspan

Luis Felipe López Calva
Lead Economist, Poverty
PREM/ECLAC

Lucas Ronconi

Martín Ardanaz

Felipe Valencia Caicedo

Mariano Tommasi
Professor, Department of Economics
Universidad de San Andrés, Argentina

Luiz Carlos Bresser-Pereira

Ricardo Ffrench-Davis
Professor of Economics
University of Chile

Ricardo Ffrench-Davis is the Professor of Economics at the University of Chile. He holds the Chilean National Prize for the Humanities and Social Sciences. He is Chairperson of the Committee for Development Policy of the United Nations in 2007-March 2010 and has represented Presidents Ricardo Lagos and Michelle Bachelet in the International Initiative to Fight Hunger and Poverty. He received a PHD degree in Economics from the University of Chicago. Previous positions include the Principal Regional Adviser of ECLAC, 1992-2005; Director of Research and Chief Economist, Central Bank of Chile, 1964-70 and 1990-92; Co-founder and Vice-President of the Center for Economic Research on Latin America (CIEPLAN), 1975-89. He has published 21 books and over 130 articles on international trade and finance, development strategies, and Latin American economies. Author of Reforming Latin America’s Economies after Market Fundamentalism, Palgrave Macmillan, N.Y., 2006; and Economic Reforms in Chile: From Dictatorship to Democracy, second edition, Palgrave Macmillan, 2010.

Stephany Griffith-Jones
Financial Markets Program Director
Initiative for Policy Dialogue (IPD)

Stephany Griffith-Jones is an economist specialising in international finance and development, with emphasis on reform of the international and national financial system, especially in relation to financial regulation and global governance. She is Financial Markets Director at the Initiative for Policy Dialogue, Columbia University. Previously she was Professorial Fellow at the Institute of Development Studies at Sussex University. She was Director of International Finance at the Commonwealth Secretariat and worked at UN DESA and ECLAC. She was senior consultant to governments in Eastern Europe, Latin America and Africa and many international agencies, including the World Bank, the IADB, the European Commission, UNDP and UNCTAD. She was a member of the Warwick Commission on financial regulation. She currently is theme leader on finance in the ESRC /DFID growth programme for LICs, especially African ones. She has published over 20 books and many scholarly and journalistic articles. Her books include Time for the Visible Hand, Lessons from the 2008 crisis, edited jointly with José Antonio Ocampo and Joseph Stiglitz.

Roberto Frenkel
Principal Research Associate
CEDES

Roberto Frenkel is Principal Research Associate at CEDES (from 1977) and Professor at the University of Buenos Aires (from 1984). Presently he is also Director of the Graduate Program on Capital Markets (University of Buenos Aires) and teaches graduate courses at the Di Tella and FLACSO-San Andrés Universities in Argentina. He was Professor at the University of Chile, University Católica de Chile, University Central de Venezuela and also visiting professor at the University of California (San Diego), University Católica de Rio de Janeiro and University of Pavia (Italy). He has been a consultant of several international organizations including UN, ILO, UNCTAD, UNDP, ECLAC, and he has also worked for the OECD Development Center, IDB, UNIDO and the governments of Argentina, Bolivia, Colombia, Venezuela and Uruguay. He was Undersecretary Chief of Economics Advisors to the Ministry of Finance (1985-89) and a member of the Board of Directors of the Banco de la Provincia de Buenos Aires (1999-2003) both in Argentina. He is a member of the Board of the World Institute for Development Economic Research (WIDER), United Nations University. He was a member of the UNDP Advisers Group. He published numerous books and articles in academic journals on macroeconomic theory and policy, money and finance, inflation and stabilization policies and labor market and income distribution, with special focus on Argentina and Latin America.

Martin Rapetti
Professor
University of MA, Amherst

Pablo García-Silva

Manuel Marfan Lewis
Board Member
Central Bank of Chile

Manuel L. Marfan has been Board Member of the Central Bank of Chile since December 2003. He graduated in economics from the University of Chile in 1977 and received a Ph.D. from Yale University in 1986 with his thesis on fiscal policy. Before joining the Bank, Mr. Marfán was regional advisor and director of the Economic Development Division of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, ECLAC from 2000 to 2003. He was Finance Minister (1999-2000), Finance Under-Secretary and chairman of the Capital Market Committee (1994-99). Previously he had been advisor to the Finance Ministry (1993-94), macroeconomic policies coordinator, and executive secretary of the Ministers’ Economic Committee (1990-91). During this time he was able to push forward tax reforms, banking and capital market reforms, modernization of the Finance Ministry services and actively participated in the design and coordination of macroeconomic policies in the decade 1990-2000. Mr. Marfán was a researcher at the Corporation for Latin American Economic Research, CIEPLAN (1977-78; 1983-90 and 1992) and for the regional employment program for Latin America and the Caribbean-ILO (1978-81). He was also member of the group of external advisors to the President of the IDB (2001) and of the external review group of the IMF’s Fiscal Affairs Department (2000). He co-chaired the Hemispheric Committee on international economic and financial affairs, linked to the Free Trade Association of the Americas, FTAA (1995-99). He has worked as a consultant on macroeconomic and fiscal policies to the governments of Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Dominican Republic and Paraguay and to the National Assembly of Costa Rica.

Jose Maria Fanelli
Researcher
Inter-American Development Bank

Mauricio Cardenas
Former Minister of Finance of Colombia and Professor of Practice
SIPA

Guillermo Perry

Javier Santiso

Pablo Zoido

Diana Tussie

Paolo Giordano

Robert Devlin
Director
Department of Effective Public Management
OAS

Eduardo Lora

Edmar Bacha
Director
Casa Das Garças Institute for Economic Policy Studies

Albert Fishlow
Professor
Columbia University

José Gregorio Pineda

Francisco Rodriguez
Head of Research Team, Human Development Report Office
UNDP

Joao Carlos Ferraz
Director
Division de Desarrollo Productivo y Empresarial

João Carlos Ferraz is the Vice President, BNDES – Brazilian Development Bank, Executive Director of Research, Corporate Planning and Risk Management; a Member of the Executive Secretary of the Brazilian Industrial Policy; an Official on leave from the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean; and a Professor on leave from the Instituto de Economia, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Michael Mortimore

Márcia Tavares

Kevin P. Gallagher
Professor of Global Development Policy
Global Development Policy Center
Boston University

Dr. Kevin P. Gallagher is an associate professor of international relations at Boston University, and senior researcher at the Global Development and Environment Institute at Tufts University. He specializes in global economic and development policy, with an emphasis on Latin America.

Professor Gallagher is the author of The Dragon in the Room: China and the Future of Latin American Industrialization (with Roberto Porzecanski), The Enclave Economy: Foreign Investment and Sustainable Development in Mexico’s Silicon Valley (with Lyuba Zarsky), and Free Trade and the Environment: Mexico, NAFTA, and Beyond. He writes a monthly column on globalization and development for the The Guardian (UK) newspaper.

Professor Gallagher is also a research fellow at Boston University’s Frederick S. Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future where he directs the Global Economic Governance Initiative. In 2010 he served on the US Department of State’s investment subcommittee of the Advisory Committee on International Economic Policy.

Roberto Porzecanski

Alejandro I. Canales Ceron
Professor
Universidad de Guadalajara

Ricardo Hausmann
Director, Center for International Development
Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University

Mario Cimoli
Professor of Economics
Ca’ Foscari University of Venice

M. Cimoli is Professor of Economics at the University of Venice (Ca’ Foscari) since 1992 and Economic Affair Officer at ECLAC (Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean) of UNITED NATIONS since 1999. He obtained a DPhil at the SPRU (University of Sussex) and he has held a number of visiting appointments in different universities and institutions (University of Pisa, University Metropolitan of Mexico (UAM), University of Campinas, etc).

Gabriel Porcile

Gabriel Porcile is Economic Affairs Officer of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC). He was Professor of Economics at the Federal University of Parana in Brazil and visiting scholar in the University of Sao Paulo, Columbia University and the New School for Social Research. He has published extensively on the topics of Structuralist and Keynesian models of growth and distribution. Gabriel Porcile holds a PhD from the London School of Economics (PhD). He was also educated at the UNICAMP (Master) in Brazil and UDELAR in Uruguay. His last publication is “A technology gap interpretation of growth paths in Asia and Latin America”, Research Policy, vol 48, co-authored with Mario Cimoli and Joao Basilio Pereima.

Gabriel Palma
University Lecturer
University of Cambridge

Salomón Salcedo

Fernando Soto-Baquero

Jose Graziano da Silva

Rodrigo Castañeda

Sergio Gómez

César Calderón

Luis Bértola
Professor
Economic and Social History Programme
Universidad de la Republica, Uruguay

Luis Bértola is Professor in the Economic and Social History Programme at Universidad de la Republica, Uruguay. He is also Visiting Professor at Gothenburg University and Editor of the Journal of Iberian and Latin American Economic History Review, and the Montevideo-Oxford Latin American Economic History Database. He is a member of the bureau of the International Economic History Association.

José Antonio Ocampo
Professor of Professional Practice at Columbia University and former Minister of Finance of Colombia
Columbia University

Jose Antonio Ocampo is a Professor of Professional Practice in the School of International and Public Affairs and former Minister of Finance of Colombia. He is also a Fellow of the Committee on Global Thought at Columbia University. Prior to his appointment at Columbia, Professor Ocampo served as the United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs, and head of UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA), as Executive Secretary of the UN Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), and has held a number of high-level posts in the Government of Colombia, including Minister of Finance and Public Credit, Director of the National Planning Department, and Minister of Agriculture . Professor Ocampo is author or editor of over 30 books and has published over 200 scholarly articles on macroeconomic theory and policy, international financial issues, economic development, international trade, and Colombian and Latin American economic history.