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Thirty years after the region embarked on large-scale liberalization, trade policy could have been expected to become all but irrelevant. Instead, a mismatch between expectations and what could realistically be delivered set the stage for much of the disappointment, skepticism, and fatigue regarding trade policy in the region, particularly in the early 2000s. By setting the bar unrealistically high, governments and analysts made trade policies an easy target for special interests that were hurt by liberalization and for those ideologically opposed to free trade. The most immediate victims were the more tangible growth and welfare gains, whose relevance was lost amid the noise of grandiose visions.
Today’s middle-income countries tend to be locked in a middle-income trap, unable to transition to higher income levels due to rising costs and declining competitiveness. While there is a broad consensus that upgrading these economies towards innovation-led growth is imperative, countless institutional and political economy obstacles remain. This book brings together analytical perspectives from comparative political economy, innovation studies, and development economics for the study of technological upgrading. Its distinctive contribution is the development of an innovative theoretical framework, named upgrading regimes, combining and extending the comparative capitalism and innovation system perspectives. It explores the usefulness of this approach by providing an indepth assessment of the political economy of upgrading in Brazil under the Workers’ Party governments. As the politics of technological upgrading will be one of the crucial research areas in the years to come, this book promises to become a key reference point in this debate.
Real borders can be thick. They are not dimensionless lines as typically assumed in theoretical models and standard empirical analyses, but a zone populated by agencies that develop and administer regulations firms have to comply with when engaging in international trade, many of which have their own procedures. Borders can then easily become a labyrinth hard to get through. This is crucial because border agencies' procedures influence the time needed to ship goods from their origins to their destinations and can thereby affect trade, particularly in a context characterized by increasingly segmented production chains and rising lean retailing. Latin American and Caribbean countries have rece...
What can be said of Latin America and the Caribbean's experiment with regional integration? Did it live up to the expectations? What does this experience say about the regional integration agenda moving forward? Do the tectonic changes undergone by the world economy in the last quarter of a century matter for policy design? This report offers answers to these pressing questions. It argues that while the "new regionalism" was in general effective to promote international trade, it failed to boost the region's competitiveness abroad. Fragmentation is seen as the original sin, and convergence the path to redemption. The policy recommendations offer different routes to convergence, from a cautious, cumulation of rules or origin approach to a non-stop sprint to a LAC-FTA. But they all come with a warning: in the current challenging trade environment, the benefits of caution might be too little, too late.
Migration is a development challenge. About 184 million people--2.3 percent of the world's population--live outside of their country of nationality. Almost half of them are in low- and middle-income countries. But what lies ahead? As the world struggles to cope with global economic imbalances, diverging demographic trends, and climate change, migration will become a necessity in the decades to come for countries at all levels of income. If managed well, migration can be a force for prosperity and can help achieve the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals. 'World Development Report 2023' proposes an innovative approach to maximize the development impacts of cross-border movements on b...
This book analyzes the ways in which the Venezuelan immigrant community is making an impact on the social and economic dynamic of small economies. This publication addresses some of the main economic development conversations on trade, labor, and fiscal implications of immigration. This book attempts to collate and unpack some of the relevant theoretical frameworks which provide a basis for policymakers and other key decision-makers. In this regard, the links between immigration and economic development is discussed with a focus on Trinidad and Tobago as a representative case within the Caribbean community.
The conference, “Measuring Migration: How? When? Why?”, was an interdisciplinary and international venue for academics, practitioners, and students to explore the idea of “measuring” migration” using a variety of methods from interdisciplinary perspectives. Participants explored the ethics and implications of what it means to track migratory flows and discussed when this might be appropriate and why these data are helpful/harmful. This conference was hosted in hybrid format online and in-person at the University of Oxford on June 9-10, 2022 (Oxford, England, UK) and was sponsored by MigrationOxford (previously known as the Migration and Mobility Network) and Nuffield College. There...
The investment promotion puzzle remains unsolved. Nearly every country in the world has established an investment promotion agency (IPA) to attract and retain foreign direct investment (FDI) in both greater quantities and of higher “quality.” Meanwhile, the literature has been virtually silent on investment promotion and its effects on FDI. As a result, we know little about what such agencies look like in different countries, what they do, how they do it, and whether and to what extent they make a difference. How to Solve An Investment Promotion Puzzle aims to fill in this gap by providing detailed information on the organization, functions and activities, and operational modalities of IPAs across over 50 countries in LAC and OECD, distilling similarities and differences and creating a new basis for peer-to-peer benchmarking and analysis of their impact. As such, it can serve as a useful guide to professionals and policymakers interested in designing better policies for FDI.
Are preferences for reforms driven by individuals’ own endowments or beliefs? To address this question, we conducted a cross-country survey on people’s opinions on employment protection legislation—an area where reform has proven to be difficult and personal interests are at stake. We find that individuals’ beliefs matter more than their own endowments and personal pay-offs. A randomized information treatment confirms that beliefs explain views about reform, but beliefs can change with new information. Our results are robust to several robustness tests, including to alternative estimation techniques and samples.
Treinta años después de que la región se embarcara en una liberalización a gran escala, cabía esperar que la política comercial pasara a ser prácticamente irrelevante. En cambio, un desajuste entre las expectativas y lo que se podría lograr de manera realista sentaron las bases para gran parte de la decepción, el escepticismo y la fatiga con respecto a la política comercial en la región, en particular a principios de la década de 2000. Al poner el listón excesivamente alto, los gobiernos y los analistas convirtieron las políticas comerciales en un blanco fácil para los intereses especiales que se vieron perjudicados por la liberalización y para aquellos que se oponen ideológicamente al libre comercio. Las víctimas más inmediatas fueron los aumentos más tangibles del crecimiento y el bienestar, cuya importancia se perdió en medio del ruido de visiones grandiosas.