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Hailed by CHOICE as "a concise, exceptionally clear exposition of the transformation of Mexican economic policy since 1982", the first edition of MEXICO was published at the height of "Mexico-optimism" in 1992. Two years later, however, Mexico was on the verge of financial collapse. Author Nora Lustig updates her original book and analyzes Mexico's economy and relatively slow growth in the early nineties.
Today Mexico is viewed as a success story in the management of economic adjustment and structural reform. Inflation is under control, capital and foreign investment are returning, and output growth has increased. Mexico's recovery, however, has been neither fast nor smooth, and the social costs the country has borne for the past several years have been very large. In 1982, Mexico faced a severe balance-of-payments crisis. Rampant inflation, capital flight, and a collapse of economic activity were the consequences of an overexpansionist fiscal policy and adverse external conditions. For the next five years, the Mexican government struggled to restore stability and growth without success. Fall...
Today Mexico is viewed as a success story in the management of economic adjustment and structural reform. Inflation is under control, capital and foreign investment are returning, and out growth has increased. Mexico's recovery, however, has been neither smooth nor rapid. In mid-1982, Mexico was in deep economic crisis compounded by an unfavorable international environment. Mexico was saddled with a large foreign debt, world interest rates were high, commercial banks had stopped lending, and the price for oil was dropping. Conditions at home were no better with rampant inflation, increasing capital flight, and chaos in financial and foreign exchange markets. To confront internal imbalances a...
The poor in developing countries are particularly vulnerable to adverse shocks. They have little or no access to public social insurance, are unlikely to save in adequate amounts to rely fully on self-insurance or informal insurance, face restricted access to private market insurance or credit mechanisms, and have little or no political voice to demand the protection of safety net programs. In this book, the authors analyze the best ways to help the poor manage risks such as health shocks, unemployment, sudden drops in income, and old age. Unemployment benefits, employment programs, means-tested social assistance, social investment funds, and micro-finance for consumption-smoothing purposes are the leading options considered. The book provides a careful assessment of issues that governments need to address in the process of designing appropriate safety nets.
Concern about the pervasiveness of poverty and income inequality in Latin America goes beyond the issue of social justice. The persistence of mass poverty and inequality pits different social groups against one another and leads to a polarization that makes consistent economic policy formation difficult. National productivity may also suffer in economies with poorly educated workforces lacking adequate health care. Statistics on poverty and inequality in Latin America are rudimentary and often conflicting. Yet it is known that poverty became more widespread in the region during the last decade as it experienced economic decline. About 180 million people, or two out of every five in the area,...
Latin America is often singled out for its high and persistent income inequality. Toward the end of the 1990s, however, income concentration began to fall across the region. Of the seventeen countries for which comparable data are available, twelve have experienced a decline, particularly since 2000. This book is among the first efforts to understand what happened in these countries and why. Led by editors Felipe López-Calva and Nora Lustig, a panel of distinguished economists undertakes in-depth analyses of Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, and Peru. In addition, they provide essential background in the form of overviews of the relationship between markets and inequality, the political economy of redistribution, and the evolution of income inequality in the advanced industrialized economies. Two factors account for much of the decline in inequality: a decrease in the wage gap between skilled and low-skilled labor, and an increase in government transfers targeted to the poor. Thanks to the timeliness and sophistication of these essays, Declining Inequality in Latin America is likely to become a standard reference in its field.
This unique manual provides policymakers, social planners, and economists with salient aspects of fiscal redistribution theory, a step-by-step guide to applying fiscal incidence analysis including the required software, a variety of country studies to illustrate, and data on fiscal redistribution for a large number of countries around the world.
"Series of well-written articles examines regional poverty and income distribution. Includes separate articles on Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Mexico, Peru, and Venezuela, as well as over 150 tables. Valuable contribution"--Handbook of Latin American Studies
The signing of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) was expected to signal the beginning of a new era of close co-operation between Mexico and the United States. Subsequent events, however, have introduced new tensions into the relationship. The 1995 economic collapse in Mexico sharply curtailed economic growth and lowered the demand for U.S. exports. The result has been a substantial deficit in U.S. trade with Mexico and renewed arguments that trade with Mexico reduces the employment opportunities of low-skilled workers in the United States. Immigration, both legal and illegal, has grown as a subject of contention between the two countries. Mexico has also come under increased fo...
Many of the rules that govern labor markets in Latin America (and elsewhere) raise labor costs, create barriers to entry, and introduce rigidities in the employment structure. These include the exceedingly restrictive regulations on hiring and firing practices, as well as burdensome social insurance schemes. Such labor market regulations contribute to an over-expansion of precarious forms of employment and to rural poverty, and hinder countries from responding rapidly to new challenges from increased foreign competition. At the same time, other norms can reduce costs and raise productivity; they should be kept in place and their enforcement improved. For example, some occupational health and...