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541. Growth, Poverty and Inequality in Latin America

Author:
William Smith and Roberto Korzeniewicz
Publication Date:
05-1999
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute for Latin American and Iberian Studies at Columbia University
Abstract:
The crystallization of the so-called “Washington Consensus” in the late 1980s sparked intense debates regarding the likely social impact of macroeconomic stabilization and structural adjustment. Academic critics and political opponents argued that Washingtonian reforms, and neoclassical economics more broadly, lacked a coherent theory of growth, and were bound to result in long-term negative trends in popular welfare and social inequality. Advocates of neoliberal restructuring, in contrast, while recognizing that market-oriented reforms could lead initially to a decline in output and standards of living, were confident that these reforms eventually would lead to sustainable growth and, as a consequence, greater equality and enhanced social welfare. A decade later we revisit this debate to evaluate recent trends in economic growth, poverty and inequality, and to assess accompanying shifts in the theoretical, policy, and political terrains.
Topic:
Development and Economics
Political Geography:
Washington, South America, Latin America, Central America, and Caribbean

542. Transparency Project

Author:
Jennifer McCoy and Shelley McConnell
Publication Date:
05-1999
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Carter Center
Abstract:
The Carter Center's Americas Program and its Council of Presidents and Prime Ministers of the Americas have initiated a multiyear project to work with governments and civil society to develop monitoring mechanisms to help combat corruption in government transactions and serve as a model for the rest of the world. Greater "transparency" in government-business interactions can improve investor confidence, spur economic growth, provide better public services to the population, and increase public confidence in democratic institutions. At a high-level conference May 4-5, 1999, leaders from across the hemisphere came to The Carter Center to evaluate specific anti-corruption efforts and seek commitments from other governments to implement similar strategies in their own countries. In preparation for that conference, The Carter Center partnered with three countries—Ecuador, Jamaica, and Costa Rica—to develop and assess specific anti-corruption tools.
Topic:
Democratization, Development, Human Rights, and Migration
Political Geography:
South America, Latin America, Central America, and Caribbean

543. Social Funds in Stabilization and Adjustment Programmes

Author:
Giovanni Cornia
Publication Date:
04-1999
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
Well before the introduction of adjustment-related Social Funds (SFs), many developing countries had developed a variety of safety nets comprising food subsidies, nutrition interventions, employment-based schemes and targeted transfers. Middle-income and a few low-income countries had also achieved extensive coverage in the field of social insurance. In countries committed to fighting poverty, these programmes absorbed considerable resources (2-5 per cent of GDP, excluding social insurance) and had a large impact on job creation, income support and nutrition: for instance, in 1983, Chile's public works programme absorbed 13 per cent of the labour force. Their ability to expand quickly depended on a permanent structure of experienced staff, good portfolios of projects, clear management rules, adequate allocation of domestic resources, supply-driven execution and, with the exception of food subsidies, fairly good targeting.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Development, and Government
Political Geography:
Africa, United States, South Asia, South America, Latin America, Central America, Caribbean, and Chile

544. Development Discontinuities: Leaders and Intermediaries in Producers' Associations

Author:
Tito Bianchi
Publication Date:
10-1999
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
The development literature considers associations an important economic development tool that allows producers to pursue their economic welfare collectively and through participatory means. This paper comparatively analyses the experience of three associations of agricultural producers in the underdeveloped regions of Brazil and Italy that were successful in this economic development task. Their experience, however, challenges a commonly held view about the participatory nature of associations.
Topic:
Development and Economics
Political Geography:
Europe, Brazil, South America, and Latin America

545. Transcript: World Economic Update I

Author:
Daniel K. Tarullo, John Lipsky, Bruce Steinberg, and David Jones
Publication Date:
11-1998
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:
Mr. Daniel K. Tarullo: Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. We'd like to get started promptly so that we can end promptly. Welcome to this morning's session on the update of world economic conditions. This is the first in what we anticipate to be a series of updates, perhaps quarterly, sponsored by the Council on Foreign Relations, probably right here in this room, part of a continuing effort to focus on world economic conditions, both for themselves, and as they intersect with foreign policy concerns.
Topic:
Economics
Political Geography:
Russia, Europe, Asia, South America, Latin America, and North America

546. Negotiating Economic Transitions in Liberizing Polities

Author:
Frances Hagopian
Publication Date:
05-1998
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, Harvard University
Abstract:
How do governments struggling to consolidate new democracies enact effective stabilization and adjustment policies, reform the public sector, and deregulate markets? And what has been the impact of economic liberalization on political institutions and systems of political representation? Treating economic and political transitions as mutually interdependent, this paper couples these questions to suggest a reformulation of the conventional wisdom about how economic liberalization proceeds and how political interests are determined. It challenges the assumption that neoliberal reform is most readily achieved in liberalizing polities when visionary political leaders surrounded by coherent economic teams with comprehensive programs in place act with a wide margin of autonomy from society. It also questions the contention that structures of political representation are the outgrowth of either economic organization or the product of state engineering. The paper makes two arguments. Its central argument is that economic reform is accomplished most readily when government reformers, acting through available clientelistic, corporatist, and party-based networks of mediation, negotiate the compliance of public and private sector representatives of social actors for the introduction of market-oriented reforms. They trade public resources or legislation favoring the representational status of political or social actors in the present for the agreement of those actors to accept diminished state resources for their organizations or constituents in the future. The use of specific networks of negotiation, moreover, influences the design of liberalization policies and helps to account for national differences in the pace and sequence of economic reform measures. The paper's second argument is that those systems of political representation that are strengthened as a result of the temporary advantages that accrue to them during the process of state retreat will endure even when they are incompatible with economic liberalism. This is so because the politicians and group leaders who manage these networks have the opportunity to design institutions that will allow them to accommodate themselves and adapt their power bases to economies in which the market plays a larger role.
Topic:
Economics and Political Economy
Political Geography:
South America, Latin America, Central America, and North America

547. Sierra Leone: Tracing The Genesis Of A Controversy

Author:
Abiodun Alao
Publication Date:
06-1998
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Chatham House
Abstract:
Prior to the recent controversy over the transfer of arms, little international attention was devoted to Sierra Leone. Even its civil war, which is at the root of the matter, did not attract any significant attention outside West Africa, despite the fact that it had claimed nearly 50,000 lives. Although its enormous diamond deposits have always attracted some interest, this has been limited to private companies and individual entrepreneurs. Many Sierra Leoneans believe that had there been sustained concern about the predicament of their country, the entire arms controversy might have been avoided. This briefing paper does not, however, attempt to delve into the complexities surrounding the sale of arms to Sierra Leone and deals only tangentially with the role of mercenaries that has been the subject of so much scrutiny. Rather, it traces the major events leading to the civil war that began in March 1991, bringing with it immense suffering for this impoverished nation. This is a tale of intrigue and power struggles that has involved most of the West African region, and has allowed unscrupulous actors from as far afield as South Africa, Britain and the United States to dabble in the affairs of this country. It is a salutary lesson in the lack of concern about the fate of small nations in the post-Cold War era.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Democratization, and Politics
Political Geography:
United States and South America

548. Global Trends 2010

Publication Date:
12-1997
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System
Abstract:
In fall 1996, the National Intelligence Council (NIC) and the Institute for National Strategic Studies (INSS) held a series of conferences at National Defense University to identify key global trends and their impact on major regions and countries of the globe. The exercise was designed to help describe and assess major features of the political world as they will appear in the year 2010.
Topic:
International Relations
Political Geography:
Africa, United States, Europe, Middle East, Asia, and South America

549. Open Regionalism: Lessons from Latin America for East Asia

Author:
Clark Winton Reynolds
Publication Date:
08-1997
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Kellogg Institute for International Studies
Abstract:
The process of regional integration is part of the reshaping of the international economic order at the end of the 20th century. Much if it is impelled by raw market forces, or what one may term 'silent integration.' In this process the increasingly liberalized movement of goods and services, factors of production (capital, technology, and labor through migration and as embodied in trade in goods and services), and tastes offers new prospects and challenges. There are opportunities for major increases in income and wealth for the most intrepid, skilled, mobile, and aggressive participants in the process. There are threats of lost income, power, prestige, values, and institutions for those left behind. There is a need to go behind the impulse of market forces, taking advantage of their dynamic but finding ways to manage interdependence so as to best reconcile differences among social groups, institutions, and values to ensure that the process of liberalized exchange produces gains that are equitable, stable, and sustainable.
Topic:
Economics, International Organization, and International Political Economy
Political Geography:
Israel, East Asia, South America, and Latin America

550. Cato Institute's 15th Annual Monetary Conference

Author:
Anna J. Schwartz, Stanley Fischer, Jerry L. Jordan, Leland B. Yeager, Francisco Gil-Diaz, Roberto Salinas-Leon, A. James Meigs, Lawrence Kudlow, William A. Niskanen, Michael Prowse, and Bert Ely
Publication Date:
10-1997
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Cato Institute
Abstract:
On Tuesday, October 15, 1997 the Cato Institute continued its 15 year tradition of exploring pressing and timely issues in international fiscal policy with its meeting Money and Capital Flows in a Global Economy. Speakers including Federal Reserve Chairman, Alan Greenspan; First Deputy Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund, Stanley Fisher; and the Bank of Mexico's Vice Governor, Francisco Gil-Díaz, convened to sort through the pressing issues relevant to global capital flows that face the world economy.
Topic:
Economics, Globalization, and International Political Economy
Political Geography:
South America, Latin America, North America, Mexico, and Nagasaki