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Begin New Search Topic Globalization Political Geography Latin America Content Type Working Paper

1. Growth in an uncertain global environment: The outlook for Latin America

Publication Date:
09-2015
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Economist Intelligence Unit
Abstract:
The growth rates witnessed in markets across Latin America in the decade to 2010 pulled millions out of poverty, led to rapid growth of the middle class and helped to demonstrate the promise of emerging markets. Since then, however, growth has slowed dramatically across the region. 2015 will mark the fifth successive year of deceleration in Latin America, which has slowed more than any other emerging market region. With concerns over the ability of emerging markets to withstand a slowdown in China and monetary policy normalisation in the US growing, risks to the growth and financing outlook for Latin America persist. However, as economic recovery starts to gather pace in the region, opportunities for investment and growth will also re-emerge. This report provides a snapshot of the current political and economic landscape in the region, and in some of Latin America’s largest economies: Brazil, Mexico and Argentina. Each article analyses key concerns and presents our view of the outlook going forward, helping you to influence decision-making and economic outcomes for your business.
Topic:
Development, Economics, Emerging Markets, Globalization, and International Trade and Finance
Political Geography:
Latin America

2. The EU and Brazil: Partnering in an uncertain world?

Author:
Giovanni Grevi
Publication Date:
05-2013
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS)
Abstract:
The international system is changing fast and both the European Union and Brazil will need to adapt. This paper argues that such a process of adjustment may bring the two closer together, even if their starting points differ considerably. Europe looks at the ongoing redistribution of power as a challenge, Brazil as an opportunity. Europe is coping with the detrimental impact of the economic crisis on its international profile; Brazil is enhancing its influence in its region and beyond. Their normative outlook is broadly compatible; their political priorities and behaviour in multilateral frameworks often differ, from trade to development and security issues. Despite the crisis, however, there are signals of renewed engagement by the EU on the international stage, with a focus on its troubled neighbourhood and partnerships with the US and large emerging actors such as Brazil. The latter is charting an original course in international affairs as a rising democratic power from the traditional South with no geopolitical opponents and a commitment to multilateralism. In testing the limits of its international influence, Brazil will need dependable partners and variable coalitions that go well beyond the BRICS format, which is not necessarily sustainable. This contribution suggests that the strategic partnership between the EU and Brazil may grow stronger not only as a platform to deepen economic ties and sustain growth, but also as a tool to foster cooperation in political and security affairs including crisis management, preventive diplomacy and human rights.
Topic:
Development, Emerging Markets, Globalization, and International Trade and Finance
Political Geography:
Europe and Latin America

3. Latin Amerika'da Sosyal Demokrat Eğilimler

Author:
Yunus Emre
Publication Date:
08-2013
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Global Political Trends Center (GPoT)
Abstract:
The 2000s saw a new orientation through left including social democracy in Latin American countries. This orientation was the direct result of the failure of the neo-liberal globalization project. This paper seeks to reveal social democratic trends in Latin America. For this purpose the rise of the Latin American left and basic trends were revealed and developments in Uruguay, Brazil, Chile and Argentina were examined.
Topic:
Democratization, Globalization, International Trade and Finance, Politics, and Governance
Political Geography:
Brazil, Argentina, Latin America, and Chile

4. LATIN AMERICAN HIGHER EDUCATION SYSTEMS IN A HISTORICAL AND COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVE

Author:
Jorge Balán
Publication Date:
09-2013
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute of International Education (IIE)
Abstract:
Higher education has undergone impressive growth and change over the last few decades in Latin America.This book selectively reviews some dimensions of this transformation, discussing policies, institutions, and programs, as well as their outcomes in terms of access, workforce training, and research. Individual chapters, commissioned from specialists from Latin America and the United States, stand as original, independent contributions focusing on key issues in higher education: changes in institutional autonomy and system governance, the contributions of higher education to advanced workforce development, policy responses to the continuing challenges of access and equity, government-sponsored study-abroad scholarships programs in several countries, trends in academic mobility and its outcomes for brain drain and gain, the changing landscape of U.S. universities' and corporations' investment in the region, and recent development of U.S. government exchange programs with Latin America.
Topic:
Development, Economics, Education, Emerging Markets, and Globalization
Political Geography:
United States and Latin America

5. Declining Inequality in Latin America in the 2000s: The Cases of Argentina, Brazil, and Mexico.

Author:
Nora Lustig, Luis F. Lopez-Calva, and Eduardo Ortiz-Juarez
Publication Date:
10-2012
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Global Development
Abstract:
Between 2000 and 2010, the Gini coefficient declined in 13 of 17 Latin American countries. The decline was statistically significant and robust to changes in the time interval, inequality measures, and data sources. In-depth country studies for Argentina, Brazil, and Mexico suggest two main phenomena underlie this trend: a fall in the premium to skilled labor and more progressive government transfers. The fall in the premium to skills resulted from a combination of supply, demand, and institutional factors. Their relative importance depends on the country.
Topic:
Development, Economics, Emerging Markets, Globalization, International Trade and Finance, Poverty, and Social Stratification
Political Geography:
Brazil, Argentina, Latin America, and Mexico

6. Business Groups, Innovation and Institutional Voids in Latin America

Author:
Fulvio Castellacci
Publication Date:
10-2012
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Norwegian Institute of International Affairs
Abstract:
The paper presents an empirical analysis of the innovative activities of business groups in Latin America. It compares the innovativeness of group-affiliated firms (GAFs) and standalone firms (SAFs), and it investigates how country-specific institutional factors – financial, legal, and labor market institutions – affect the group-innovation relationship. The empirical analysis is based on the most recent wave of the World Bank Enterprise Survey (period 2010-2011), and it focuses on a sample of 6500 manufacturing firms across 20 Latin American countries. The econometric results point out two major conclusions. First, GAFs are more innovative than SAFs: we estimate the innovation propensity of GAFs to be 9% higher than that of SAFs. Secondly, across countries, the innovativeness of GAFs is higher for national economies with a better institutional system than for countries with a less efficient institutional set up.
Topic:
Economics, Globalization, International Trade and Finance, and Markets
Political Geography:
Latin America

7. Credit at Times of Stress: Latin American Lessons from the Global Financial Crisis

Author:
Liliana Rojas-Suarez and Carlos Montoro
Publication Date:
02-2012
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Global Development
Abstract:
The financial systems in emerging market economies during the 2008–09 global financial crisis performed much better than in previous crisis episodes, albeit with significant differences across regions. For example, real credit growth in Asia and Latin America was less affected than in Central and Eastern Europe. This paper identifies the factors at both the country and the bank levels that contributed to the behavior of real credit growth in Latin America during the global financial crisis. The resilience of real credit during the crisis was highly related to policies, measures and reforms implemented in the pre-crisis period. In particular, we find that the best explanatory variables were those that gauged the economy's capacity to withstand an external financial shock. Key were balance sheet measures such as the economy's overall currency mismatches and external debt ratios (measuring either total debt or short-term debt). The quality of pre-crisis credit growth mattered as much as its rate of expansion. Credit expansions that preserved healthy balance sheet measures (the “quality” dimension) proved to be more sustainable. Variables signalling the capacity to set countercyclical monetary and fiscal policies during the crisis were also important determinants. Moreover, financial soundness characteristics of Latin American banks, such as capitalization, liquidity and bank efficiency, also played a role in explaining the dynamics of real credit during the crisis. We also found that foreign banks and banks which had expanded credit growth more before the crisis were also those that cut credit most. The methodology used in this paper includes the construction of indicators of resilience of real credit growth to adverse external shocks in a large number of emerging markets, not just in Latin America. As additional data become available, these indicators could be part of a set of analytical tools to assess how emerging market economies are preparing themselves to cope with the adverse effects of global financial turbulence on real credit growth.
Topic:
Debt, Economics, Emerging Markets, Globalization, and Financial Crisis
Political Geography:
Europe, Asia, and Latin America

8. The Impact of Global Crises, Trade Finance and Aid on Export Flows: A Developing Country Perspective

Author:
Jose Brambila-Macias, Isabella Massa, and Matthew J. Salois
Publication Date:
11-2011
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Danish Institute for International Studies (DIIS)
Abstract:
In this paper, we use a mixed-effects trade gravity model on a sample of 83 developing countries over the period 1990-2007 to assess the impact of trade finance and foreign aid on bilateral export flows. In addition to traditional variables, we also include a banking crises variable and a global economic downturns variable among the regressors. Differences across developing regions are taken into account. Our results suggest that: (i) trade finance has a positive and significant impact on bilateral export flows in all developing regions except Latin America; (ii) foreign aid matters in all regions; (iii) global economic downturns exert a negative and significant impact on export flows in all developing countries, and especially in Latin American and Sub-Saharan African economies; (iv) banking crises appear to have no significant impact in most developing regions.
Topic:
Economics, Globalization, International Trade and Finance, Foreign Aid, and Financial Crisis
Political Geography:
Africa and Latin America

9. National Perspectives on Global Leadership During the Cannes G20

Author:
Colin Bradford
Publication Date:
11-2011
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for International Governance Innovation
Abstract:
Reporting from 13 G20 countries reveals that, through the eyes of the national media, the euro crisis “overwhelmed,” “dominated,” “totally sidetracked” or “hijacked” the Cannes G20 Summit on Thursday night through Friday afternoon, November 4-5, 2011. Only Argentina seems to have been captivated by the bilateral meeting between US President Barack Obama and their leader, President Cristina Kirschner, to such a degree that it overshadowed the global preoccupation with the Greek debt crisis and its implications for the euro zone and the global economy. As she did at other G20 summits, Cristina Kirschner found a way to project her own priorities and portray them to the Argentine public through deliberate preparation with her cabinet beforehand and in regional consultations, and this also held true at her appearance at the B20 (G20 business summit) held just before the G20.
Topic:
Economics, Globalization, International Cooperation, and Financial Crisis
Political Geography:
Europe and Latin America

10. Global Brazil and U.S.-Brazil Relations

Author:
Samuel W. Bodman, James D. Wolfensohn, and Julia E. Sweig
Publication Date:
07-2011
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:
Brazil has transcended its status as the largest and most resource-rich country in Latin America to now be counted among the world's pivotal powers. Brazil is not a conventional military power, it does not rival China or India in population or economic size, and it cannot match the geopolitical history of Russia. Still, how Brazil defines and projects its interests, a still-evolving process, is critical to understanding the character of the new multipolar and unpredictable global order.
Topic:
Development, Economics, Globalization, and International Trade and Finance
Political Geography:
Russia, China, India, Brazil, and Latin America