In a widely cited paper, Young (1995) showed that the East Asian miracles (Hong Kong, Korea, Singapore and Taiwan) grew mostly through input accumulation during the period 1966-1990. Using data for 83 countries taken from the Penn World Table, version 6.1, and Barro and Lee (2000), we use a...

In 2011 the Government of El Salvador implemented a reform to the liquefied gas (LPG) subsidy that increased the welfare of households in all but the top two deciles of the income distribution. However, the reform turned out to be rather unpopular, including among winners. This paper relies on...

This article examines the e¤ects of sectorial shifts and structural transformation on the recent productivity path of Latin America. We use a four-sector (agriculture, industry, modern services and traditional services) general equilibrium model calibrated to the main economies in the region....

We study the impact of distortions in the investment goods sector on aggregate total factor productivity (TFP). We develop a two-sector neo- classical growth model in which TFP in the capital goods sector relative to TFP in the consumption sector is inversely related to the price of invest- ment...

Fiscal policy in Latin America has been guided primarily by short-term liquidity targets whose observance was taken as the main exponent of fiscal prudence, with attention focused almost exclusively on the levels of public debt and the cash deficit. Very little attention was paid to the effects...

Fiscal policy in Latin America has been guided primarily by short-term liquidity targets whose observance was taken as the main exponent of fiscal prudence, with attention focused almost exclusively on the levels of public debt and the cash deficit. Very little attention was paid to the effects...

In this note the growth anti welfare effects of fiscal anti monetary policies are investigated in three economies where public investment is part of the productive process It is shown that growth is maximized at positive levels of income tax and inflation but that there is no direct relationship...