Economic Commission For Latin America And The Caribbean Research Articles

Corporate governance and debt securities issued in Brazil and India: A multi-case study

The corporate debt market tends to provide a funding alternative, but requires improvements in regulation and self-regulation. Therefore, corporate governance arises as a central element for reducing agency conflicts, and private debt market development. We analyze the corporate governance structure of debt issuers from Brazil and India through an index of Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC). The results showed that the non-defaulted companies had higher scores and the corporate governance quality of the issuer tends to contribute to the fulfillment of its obligations.

Comercio intrarregional de los sectores autopartes y metalmecánico del departamento de Santander con los países miembro de la Alianza del Pacífico en el periodo 2012-2015

El propósito de este artículo es presentar los aspectos más relevantes del comercio intrarregional de los sectores autopartes y metalmecánico del departamento de Santander, Colombia, en el periodo 2012-2015. Para ello se aplicaron los indicadores de comercio intrarregional, extrarregional y de intensidad de comercio a los capítulos arancelarios correspondientes a los sectores de autopartes y metalmecánico de dicho departamento. Como resultado, se determinó que el intercambio comercial de dichos capítulos arancelarios se presenta con países diferentes a los miembros de la Alianza del Pacífico. La metodología del artículo se basa en los indicadores otorgados por la Comisión de Estudios Económicos para América Latina y el Caribe (Cepal) para medir el dinamismo comercial, y su objetivo es mostrar el comportamiento del comercio internacional de los sectores autopartes y metalmecánico de Santander para la generación de estrategias que impulsen el desarrollo de la región.

El efecto del envejecimiento para la carga de cáncer en Colombia: proyecciones para las primeras cinco localizaciones por departamento y sexo en Colombia, 2020 y 2050

ObjectiveTo demonstrate the effect of demographic changes envisaged by the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) on the burden of cancer in Colombia. MethodThe number of new cases of cancer was established in the top five locations in patients>15 years-old, using the incidence rates of cancer for each Department, Bogotá, and the Amazonas group, estimated by the National Cancer Institute of Colombia and the population projections for 2020 by the National Administrative Department of Statistics (NADS), and 2050 by ECLAC. ResultsThe number of these new cases could increase by 28% in men and 25% in women by 2020, but by 2050 the increase would be 58% in both sexes. The disease in these locations would be concentrated much more in people over 65 in 2050, from 62% to 75% in men and 33% to 53% in women. More than three-quarters of them would be prostate, stomach, and lung cancer in men, and in women breast, cervical and colorectal cancer in most Departments of the country. ConclusionsIt is necessary to reflect on the construction of public policy on cancer health care, by measuring, comparing and disseminating the results of prevention and timely detection by health providers. Reflection is also required on the diagnostic and treatment services available in all regions and in the meaning of cancer care in the elderly, palliative care at all levels with a focus on public health, and social support for caregivers.

Bibliography

Bibliography

Aproximaciones al rol de los planificadores regionales de la Iniciativa para la Integración de la Infraestructura Regional Suramericana (IIRSA)

En el presente articulo se analiza el rol central que vienen cumpliendo los planificadores regionales alineados con la vision del regionalismo abierto cepalino en la actual estrategia de insercion de America Latina en el capitalismo global, en vista de su sujecion a los imperativos mundiales del capital transnacionalizado. Para ello se enfoca la atencion en los instrumentos metodologicos de la Planificacion Territorial Indicativa (PTI) de la Iniciativa para la Integracion de la Infraestructura Regional Suramericana (IIRSA), entendiendo a esta ultima como institucion reproductora del regionalismo abierto de la cepal desde su propuesta general de integracion fisica regional. Se exponen cuatro secciones donde se desarrollan la emergencia del regionalismo abierto cepalino como estrategia espacial del Estado y la relevancia de iirsa en torno a la reproduccion del mismo, para luego analizar el rol que desempenan en la misma los planificadores regionales desde la creacion de consenso por medio de la pti, hasta la creacion de territorialidades particulares.

Estudos organizacionais, (des)colonialidade e estudos da dependência: as contribuições da Cepal

O objetivo deste artigo é (re)visitar o conceito de dependência como categoria de investigação da (e a partir da) América Latina, por meio de uma perspectiva histórica crítica descolonial, a fim de ampliar o espaço de debates em estudos organizacionais e promover alternativas à ordem neoliberal. Este ensaio terá como foco os estudos da dependência realizados pela Comissão Econômica para a América Latina e o Caribe (Cepal) durante a década de 1950 e o início dos anos 1960. A perspectiva descolonial é um constructo teórico de autores latino-americanos que se consideram herdeiros da longa tradição do pensamento social crítico da região, na qual a teoria da dependência está inserida. As propostas dos autores da dependência confrontaram as principais teorias ortodoxas do Norte produzidas à época. A partir do conceito de centro-periferia, da denúncia de assimetrias nas relações entre essas regiões, do reconhecimento da interdependência entre desenvolvimento e subdesenvolvimento, o conceito de dependência foi sendo (re)elaborado nas décadas de 1950 e 1960 por diversos autores latino-americanos como uma categoria de investigação da realidade da (e a partir da) região. Essas investigações tinham por objetivo não somente elaborar constructos teóricos, mas, também, transformar a realidade por meio da criação de diversas organizações e instituições que deveriam servir ao propósito de superar o subdesenvolvimento. A denúncia da historicidade da situação de subdesenvolvimento desnudou o caráter de neutralidade do economicismo das teorias produzidas no Norte e promoveu um encontro teórico entre economia e política que muito tem a contribuir com a área dos estudos organizacionais.

Approaches to Climate Change & Health in Cuba: Guillermo Mesa MD MPhil, Director, Disasters & Health, National School of Public Health. Paulo Ortiz MS PhD, Senior Researcher, Climate Center, Cuban Meteorology Institute.

The US National Institutes of Health predict climate change will cause an additional 250,000 deaths between 2030 and 2050, with damages to health costing US$2-$4 billion by 2030. Although much debate still surrounds climate change, island ecosystems-such as Cuba's-in the developing world are arguably among the most vulnerable contexts in which to confront climate variability. Beginning in the 1990s, Cuba launched research to develop the evidence base, set policy priorities, and design mitigation and adaptation actions specifically to address climate change and its effects on health. Two researchers at the forefront of this interdisciplinary, intersectoral effort are epidemiologist Dr Guillermo Mesa, who directed design and implementation of the nationwide strategy for disaster risk reduction in the Cuban public health system as founding director of the Latin American Center for Disaster Medicine (CLAMED) and now heads the Disasters and Health department at the National School of Public Health; and Dr Paulo Ortiz, a biostatistician and economist at the Cuban Meteorology Institute's Climate Center (CENCLIM), who leads the research on Cuba's Climate and Health project and is advisor on climate change and health for the UN Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC).

Reuse and Transformation of a Modern Movement Masterpiece: UN-CEPAL-ECLAC Building, Santiago de Chile

Recent interventions in modern oeuvres of high cultural significance have set new challenges, opening discussion on the various positions associated with their preservation and sustainability. In particular, the relationship between newly conceived architecture and modern heritage, for which the analysis of the design in the original building, the ideas promoted in terms of its significance and the results obtained in material terms, become the key features in each case. The experience of the United Nations ECLAC (Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean) building in Santiago, Chile, may, in this sense, be of special interest in order to verify possibilities of sustainability that assume both the contingencies among which the rehabilitation process takes place and the values recognized in the building as monument.

Celso Furtado: The Struggles of an Economist

This short article describes the life and times of the Brazilian economist Celso Furtado (1920–2004). It underlines the four major periods of his activities and evolving thought: as head of the Division of Development at the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), in Santiago de Chile; in the Northeast of Brazil, where he became a man of action as head of the Sudene (Superintendency for the Development of the Northeast), a governmental agency to foster development in this region; during his long exile in France as a professor of economics; and his return to Brazil to be minister of culture, then becoming a major political and moral point of reference in the country. The article also highlights his main contributions to the theory of underdevelopment, to the economic history and regional problems of Brazil, and to the cultural dimension of development.

Decreasing Inequality under Latin America's “Social Democratic” and “Populist” Governments: Is the Difference Real?

The article addresses the claim that the "left populist" governments of Argentina, Bolivia, Ecuador, and Venezuela failed to effectively reduce inequality in the 2000s. The author examines the econometric evidence presented by McLeod and Lustig (2011) that the "social democratic" governments of Brazil, Chile, and Uruguay were more successful and shows that McLeod and Lustig's results are highly sensitive to their use of data from the Socioeconomic Database for Latin America and the Caribbean (SEDLAC). Conducting the same analysis using inequality data from the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) suggests the exactly opposite conclusion. The contrast between the results obtained using SEDLAC and ECLAC data suggests that the choice of inequality data source is not immaterial and that the difference is probably driven by how the two sources handle the underreporting of income in household surveys. The key difference between SEDLAC and ECLAC data is that the latter correct for the underreporting of income while the former do not. Absent reasonable criteria for choosing between the two datasets, the author suggests that any econometric results pertaining to Latin American income inequality should prove robust to both data sources.

Inclusive Social Protection in Latin America: A Comprehensive, Rights-Based Approach

One of the main findings to have emerged from the debate spearheaded by the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) in recent years is that economic and social development are closely intertwined and should form an active part of any public policy aimed at achieving greater equality. However, social gaps and debt in the region call for efforts to be redoubled to achieve full equal opportunities and universal rights. Although, in the past five years, there have been promising results in terms of poverty reduction and economic growth, Latin America remains the world's most unequal region. This poses challenges not only in terms of monetary income but also from the gender, ethnic and territorial standpoints. In excluded and other groups, these factors tend to lead to precarious employment that does not serve as a vehicle for social mobility and welfare. Furthermore, the working conditions of large sections of the population are a far cry from the normative horizon of decent work and fail to ensure access to social protection mechanisms. The region still has a very long way to go in achieving full realization of rights. In the absence of effective public or private protection channels, this undermines people's sense of belonging and precludes the legitimacy needed for a common project shared by all citizens.

Armed Conflict and Human Rights in Colombia

Armed Conflict and Human Rights in Colombia

Recent Trends in Income Inequality in Latin America

Recent Trends in Income Inequality in Latin America Leonardo Gasparini (bio), Guillermo Cruces (bio), and Leopoldo Tornarolli (bio) Any assessment of the Latin American economies would be incomplete without reference to their high levels of socioeconomic inequalities. All countries in the region are characterized by large disparities of income and consumption levels, access to education, land, and basic services, and other socioeconomic variables. Inequality is a distinctive, pervasive characteristic of the region. This document presents information updated through the mid-2000s and analyzes patterns and trends of income inequality in Latin America. The measurement and analysis of inequality have long been a major topic of study for economics and other social sciences in the region. However, the scarcity of reliable and consistent microeconomic data has always been an obstacle against comprehensive assessments. Most studies are based on limited sources or are constrained to cover a single country. The United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), the World Bank, and the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) have all made efforts to assemble large databases of national household surveys to support wider [End Page 147] assessments of inequality, poverty, and other socioeconomic variables. This study is mostly based on data from the Socioeconomic Database for Latin America and the Caribbean (SEDLAC), a project developed jointly by the Center for Distributive, Labor, and Social Studies (CEDLAS) and the World Bank. This database contains information on more than 200 official household surveys in twenty-five Latin American and Caribbean countries. This paper uses data for the period from 1992 to 2006. We confirm that income inequality increased in the 1990s as documented in the literature, but we also find that inequality decreased in the 2000s, suggesting a turning point from the unequalizing changes of the previous two decades. While the recent fall in income inequality is significant and widespread, it does not seem to be based on strong fundamentals. The rest of this paper is organized as follows. The discussion opens with a description of the data sources and their limitations. The subsequent section represents the core of the paper, as it documents the main patterns of income inequality in Latin America, at both the country and regional levels. The paper then takes a look inside household income, discussing inequality patterns for the distribution of individual labor and nonlabor income. We also place the Latin American evidence in international perspective, using various data sources. The final section presents our concluding remarks. The Data The main source of data for this paper is the Socioeconomic Database for Latin America and the Caribbean (SEDLAC), developed jointly by CEDLAS at the Universidad Nacional de La Plata (Argentina) and the World Bank's Latin American and Caribbean Poverty and Gender Group. This database contains information on more than 200 official household surveys in twenty-five Latin American and Caribbean countries: the seventeen countries in continental Latin America (namely, Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay, and Venezuela) plus eight countries in the Caribbean (the Dominican Republic and seven non-Hispanic Caribbean countries). The sample represents 97 percent of the total Latin American and Caribbean population, including 100 percent in continental Latin America and 55 percent in the Caribbean. The main missing country is Cuba, which does not disclosure household survey information. Our analysis starts in the early 1990s, [End Page 148] when most countries in Latin America consolidated their household survey programs, and ends in 2006. Table 1 lists the surveys used in this study, covering the eighteen Latin American countries in the CEDLAS database. Household surveys in most countries are nationally representative, with the exception of Argentina and Uruguay (before 2006), where surveys cover only the urban population. This nonetheless represents 88 percent and 92 percent of the total population in these countries, respectively. In these two cases, we use the urban figures as proxies for the national statistics.1 Most countries experienced changes in their household surveys in the 1990s and 2000s. In many cases the geographical coverage was broadened, monthly surveys were replaced by annual ones, and the questionnaires were improved. Although these changes are certainly welcome, they pose significant...

Toward Post-Neoliberalism in Latin America?

Toward Post-Neoliberalism in Latin America? Cristóbal Rovira Kaltwasser (bio) Beyond Neoliberalism in Latin America? Societies and Politics at the Crossroads. Edited by John Burdick, Philip Oxhorn, and Kenneth M. Roberts . New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009. Pp. x + 277. $95.00 cloth. Governance after Neoliberalism in Latin America. Edited by Jean Grugel and Pia Riggirozzi . New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009. Pp. xvii + 288. $90.00 cloth. Latin American Neostructuralism: The Contradictions of Post-Neoliberal Development. By Fernando Ignacio Leiva . Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2008. Pp. xxxvi + 315. $25.00 paper. Post-Neoliberalism in the Americas. Edited by Laura Macdonald and Arne Ruckert . Basingstoke, U.K.: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009. Pp. xv + 296. $85.00 cloth. Contemporary Latin America: Development and Democracy beyond the Washington Consensus. By Francisco Panizza . London: Zed Books, 2009. Pp. 305. $29.95 cloth. Challenging Neoliberalism in Latin America. By Eduardo Silva . New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009. Pp. xviii + 318. $26.99 paper. $85.00 cloth. In the first decade of the new millennium, Latin America is far from Francis Fukuyama's prediction of the end of history. At both the elite and mass levels, liberal democracy and market economics are neither the only nor necessarily the preferred models for development. In fact, democratically elected leaders such as Hugo Chávez in Venezuela, Néstor Kirchner in Argentina, and Evo Morales in Bolivia have implemented economic policies at odds with the prescriptions of the Washington Consensus. At the same time, various social movements and leaders have emerged, [End Page 225] demanding not only the nationalization of economic resources but also new forms of political articulation beyond liberal politics. In this light, it is not surprising that interesting debates are taking place on the (re)emergence of the Latin American left and on the search for new models of development. These debates are at the heart of the six books reviewed here. These books make strong and different contributions to scholarship on alternatives to the neoliberal paradigm in Latin America. Latin American Neostructuralism provides a detailed account of the evolution of economic thinking by the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) since the end of the 1980s. Beyond Neoliberalism in Latin America? offers novel analyses of why, and to what extent, several Latin American nations have reached a turning point. This collection explicitly seeks to be interdisciplinary and includes chapters by anthropologists, geographers, political economists, and political scientists. Basing itself more squarely in political science, Challenging Neoliberalism in Latin America asks why social movements in certain countries, and not others, opposed expansion of the market economy, thus paving the way for new political alliances and left-of-center governments. From the perspective of political science, Contemporary Latin America shows not only that the Washington Consensus had—and still has, in some countries—an important degree of popular support but also that its decline is due to ideological changes at the global level, as seen in entities such as international financial institutions (IFIs). Consistent with these findings, Governance after Neoliberalism in Latin America looks at newly emergent paradigms, with both individual and comparative analyses by specialists in political science, political economy, and development. Post-Neoliberalism in the Americas provides an overview of recent trends in economic policy in North, Central, and South America to attempt to answer the question of whether Latin America's turn to the left implies the death of neoliberalism or rather neoliberalism's inclusion of progressive alternatives. Its contributors vary greatly in orientation, representing development studies, gender studies, international relations, political economy, political science, and sociology. In beginning, it is worth mentioning that, even though the works under review provide a good overview of recent developments in Latin America, neither Central America nor the Caribbean receives much attention. As well, despite Mexico's geopolitical importance, it is the subject of a single case study (along with two chapters comparing it to Canada in Post- Neoliberalism in the Americas). In contrast, Bolivia is accorded much attention as a paradigm of the challenges facing Latin America. One may therefore ask whether Mexico—given its close ties to the United States and its unique democratic transition—presents an exceptional trajectory, or whether instead...

Using Social Power to Balance Soft Power: Venezuela's Foreign Policy

President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela has achieved what no other Latin American leader has since the end of the Cold War: bringing security concerns in the Western Hemisphere back to U.S. foreign policy. Might Venezuela provoke a war against neighboring Colombia, spread weapons among insurgents abroad, disrupt oil sales to the United States, provide financial support to Hezbollah, al Qaeda or other fundamentalist movements, offer safe havens for drug dealers, invite Russia to open a military base on its territory, or even acquire nuclear weapons? 1 These security concerns did not exist less than a decade ago, but today they occupy the attention of U.S. officials. Attention to these conventional security issues, however, carries the risk of ignoring what thus far has been Venezuela's most effective foreign policy tool in challenging the United States: the use of generous handouts abroad, peppered with a pro-poor, distribution-prone discourse. While the U.S. debate revolves around ''hard power'' and ''soft power,'' 2 this other form can be called ''social power diplomacy.'' Similar to hard power and soft power, social power diplomacy allows the projecting nation to attract allies but through different means. With social power diplomacy, other nations are not necessarily cajoled into bowing to the economic or military might of the projecting nation, as is the case in the realm of traditional hard power politics. Also, nations are not necessarily attracted to the magnetic appeal of the projecting nation's ideology and values, as is the case with the realm of soft power politics. Instead, social power diplomacy attracts allies because it provides governments with far more latitude in domestic spending than is the case

El papel del capital multinacional en los procesos de integración regional (ALALC y Mercosur)

En este artículo se analiza la función de la inversión extranjera directa en general, y del capital multinacional en particular, en el proceso de integración cristalizado en la Asociación Latinoamericana de Libre Comercio (alalc, 1960) y en el Mercado Común del Sur (Mercosur, 1991). Se revisan las posturas teóricas de mayor peso en materia de integración económica en el ámbito regional, tanto en la posguerra como en la actualidad, y se articulan con estadísticas sobre inversión extranjera directa y estrategias de las empresas multinacionales provistas por la onu, la cepal y la alalc para comprender la incidencia de los mecanismos que promueven las economías centrales en los espacios periféricos como América Latina.

The MDGs in Latin America and the Caribbean

There is no doubt that Latin America is on track to meeting its commitment to halve the 1990 extreme poverty rate by the 2015 target deadline. The most recent estimates by the UN Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) show that some 14 million Latin Americans escaped from poverty in 2006 and another 10 million are no longer destitute. The number of poor people stands at 36 per cent of the population (194 million) and those living in indigent conditions at 13.4 per cent (71 million); during 2007, these figures are likely to drop to 190 million and 69 million, respectively. For the first time since 1990, the total number of people living in poverty in the region has dropped below 200 million.

The Millennium Development Goals: Strategic Implications for the Latin American and Caribbean Statistical Systems

This document was prepared by Jose Luis Cervera-Ferri, Consultant, ECLAC, and Hubert Escaith, ECLAC Statistics and Economic Projections Division, based on Jose L. Cervera Ferri, El seguimiento de los objetivos de desarrollo del Milenio: oportunidades y retos para los Sistemas Nacionales de Estadistica, Serie No.39, Estudios estadsiticos y propectivos (LC/L.2458-P) Santiago, Chile, Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), December 2005. The views expressed in this document, which has been reproduced without formal editing, are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Organization. Summary This document synthesizes and updates the results of a research programme conducted at the request of the Statistical Conference of the Americas (SCA). It builds upon a first report, available in Spanish, which was prepared by Jose L. Cervera-Ferri, consultant at the Statistics and Economic Projections Division of the ECLAC. It was based, inter alia, on the answers to an ECLAC questionnaire circulated to the National Statistical Offices (NSOs) of the region in 2005 regarding the aspects of monitoring the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and the response of the National Statistical Systems (NSS) in producing the necessary The objective was to analyze the way information gathered by the diverse entities that form the NSS in the region is systematized at national level, and identify the role NSOs should take as rector and coordinator of the NSS. This questionnaire was the first step in a 2005-2007 programme of research and technical assistance conducted by the Statistics and Economic Projections Division of the ECLAC, with a view of strengthening technical and institutional capacities in the region. Intermediary results were presented and discussed at the Third Statistical Conference of the Americas, in June 2005. In November 2006, a regional seminar was organized by ECLAC to update the evaluation of the NSOs' situation with regard to the MDGs. This meeting was the opportunity to review the changes that occur since 2005, and analyse the best regional practices. The present document identifies six main challenges facing the national statistical systems in following-up the MDGs, ranging from expanding the availability of data to securing the proper institutional and financial context. These challenges are interrelated, and therefore the coordination of the national statistical systems should be viewed as a strategic priority. In addition to strengthening the systemic coherence of the various national statistical actors, the report identifies a series of technical issues that require specific attention in view of coordinating the monitoring of the MDGs. Monitoring the MDGs provides also opportunities for strengthening national statistical systems. Indeed, the follow-up to the MDGs has helped generating national, regional and international discussions a policy level on the importance of statistical information in the development process. The document revises these opportunities and proposes a strategy that engages all the statistics-generating agencies in each Latin American and Caribbean country. The Statistical Conference of the Americas has taken the lead in this respect, by formally including the monitoring of the MDGs as one of the main dimension of its 2005-2015 strategic plan. The document underlines the specific role of the SCA for the development of the statistical capabilities in Latin America and the Caribbean and for bridging the existing gaps between national and international MDG It is also offers some preliminary and partial answers from Latin America and the Caribbean to the call of the United Nations Statistical Commission' s Friends of the Chair on MDGs indicators asking Regional Commissions to conduct studies of the ability of countries to provide reliable data on MDG indicators.

Neoliberal and neostructuralist perspectives on labour flexibility, poverty and inequality: A critical appraisal

Over the past three decades, neoliberal and Latin American neostructuralist ideas have contributed to the restructuring of Latin American capitalism from import substituting industrialisation (ISI)...

Multidimensional Poverty and Economic Crisis: Recent Evidence from Uruguay

Iberoamericana – Revista Nórdica de Estudios de Latinoamérica y el Caribe, es una revista académica arbitrada, interdisciplinaria y bilingüe. Es administrada por el Instituto de Estudios Latinoamericanos de la Universidad de Estocolmo en colaboración con otras universidades nórdicas con el objetivo de presentar investigación de alta calidad sobre América Latina.La revista publica artículos originales enfocados en temas relacionados con las ciencias sociales y humanidades. Investigadores de todo el mundo son bienvenidos a enviar sus manuscritos en inglés o español.