Esta publicación presenta un diagnóstico y señala los principales desafíos y alternativas de política que Costa Rica ha de enfrentar en la actual coyuntura en relación con su proceso de integración económica con el mundo. La Nota también señala posibles apoyos del Banco para abordar...

This presentation was commissioned by the Poverty Reduction and Social Protection Network of the Regional Policy Dialogue for the V Hemispheric Meeting celebrated on May 22nd and 23rd, 2003. Developments in the labor market of the region during the nineties. Patterns of adjustment to cyclical...

This paper provides evidence on the channels through which export promotion institutions affect bilateral trade using a sample of Latin American and Caribbean countries over the period 1995-2004. We find that these institutions have a larger impact on the extensive margin of exports, especially...

According to the economic theory and recent empirical evidence, improved market access through trade arrangements is likely to favor export diversification. In this paper, we assess whether this has been the case of Colombian exports to the United States and whether an FTA with the United States...

This presentation argues that trade policy in the region has been too focused on removing tariffs, to the detriment of trade facilitation, particularly in transportation. It explores the impact of transport costs on trade in Latin America and the Caribbean, and argues that transport costs have...

This paper assesses role played by export promotion institutions in shaping the extensive margin of Latin American and Caribbean countries' exports over the period 1995-2004. The authors find that the presence of offices of export promotion agencies abroad favors an increase in the number of...

Virtually all Latin American and Caribbean countries have established specialized organizations to promote their exports. Existing analyses of these organizations are at best partial and fragmentary. This paper aims at overcoming these limitations of the literature by presenting a consistent,...

En los últimos 15 años, la economía uruguaya sufrió grandes transformaciones y fuertes choques externos, los cuales tuvieron importantes repercusiones en el mercado laboral. Más allá de los devastadores efectos de la reciente crisis económica sobre el empleo, desempleo e ingresos de los...

Entering new export markets is primarily a discrete choice. Even though several empirical papers have used modeling strategies consistent with this fact, no study has examined the effects of public policies aimed at affecting this decision within this setting. In this paper we assess the impact...

This paper present information about the effects of the establishment of MERCOSUR on manufacturing production patterns in Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay over the period 1985-1998.