Economic Growth in the Southern Cone

Abstract

This paper examines the growth experiences of Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay (Southern Cone countries). The analysis sheds light on the strengths and weaknesses of long-run growth of these countries by identifying similarities and differences with other countries and assesses their economic performance on that comparative basis. In order to analyze how satisfactory the development process in the Southern Cone countries has been over the past 40 years it is important to make comparisons with relevant countries. To tackle this issue, we focus on the per-capita economic growth rate and its contributing factors, comparing the experience in Southern Cone countries with that of benchmark countries, namely a typical country of the rest of Latin America (LAC), of the rest of the world outside Latin America (ROW) and of its subset of developed countries (DEV).