Why are growth rates in Latin America so disappointing? This book reviews the results of an ambitious research project to determine the binding constraints to growth, that is, the barrier whose removal would yield the greatest benefit in terms of growth. Included are case studies from seven...

Competing in the world economy does not automatically boost a nation's productivity and restructure its economy. Such progress requires mobilizing capital, employment, technology and knowledge. Opportunities beyond the business realm must be fully exploited to the benfit of society as a whole....

Regional integration initiatives have long been part of the world economic landscape. In Latin America, integration flourished in the early post-war era but then lost momentum until the 1990s, when there was a new wave of initiatives ranging from free trade areas to customs unions. This Report...

This report moves beyond the conventional scope of economics to examine three entrenched structural factors -demography, geography and institutions- that are closely connected to economic and social development. Historical in nature and slow to evolve, these variables are not always in the...

This paper combines development and growth accounting exercises with economic theory to estimate the relative importance of total factor productivity and the accumulation of factors of production in the economic development performance of Latin America. The regions development performance is...

Total factor productivity (TFP) in Latin America has not increased since the mid- 1970s, and in many countries it has declined. Moreover, resource misallocation can lower aggregate TFP. This paper presents evidence based on firm-level data from 10 Latin American countries to quantify the...

This presentation examines the reasons behind poor economic performance in Latin America and the resulting economic and social costs, with a particular focus on Chile. The study concludes that the problem lies in the low productivity of the manufacturing and service sectors. Given the increasing...

This presentation aims to understand what is behind aggregate productivity and how it grows, expanding the scope beyond that of traditional studies -which tend to emphasize technological growth and manufacturing- to include total factor productivity (TFP) to reflect market inefficiencies. The...