1st Edition

Market Liberalism, Growth, and Economic Development in Latin America

    320 Pages 89 B/W Illustrations
    by Routledge

    320 Pages 89 B/W Illustrations
    by Routledge

    The principal themes pursued in this book emerge from the great transformation that the Latin American and the Caribbean economies experienced in the aftermath of both the foreign debt crisis of 1982 and the macroeconomic stabilisation policies that vividly and painfully produced the so-called "lost decade" of the 1980s.

    Latin America implemented an economic liberalisation process during the late 1980s and the 1990s. The main policy reforms involved in that course can be summarized as privatization of state owned firms, trade openness, deregulation of the foreign direct investment (FDI) regime and fiscal discipline. Latin American countries have also embarked in regional trade agreements, the most important ones being Mercosur and the North American Free trade Agreement (NAFTA). This book compares results from the experience of North-South and South-South moulds of integration. Thus, the impacts of these policies on growth, development, technological progress, poverty and inequality are analysed. Orthodox and heterodox economic policies and theories are discussed along with relevant empirical evidence with a view to assess, on the one hand, the relative merits of the various policy reforms applied by different countries in the region, and on the other, the experience of integration into the global economy.

    There are thirteen chapters in this collection linked in varying ways to the series of economic reforms introduced in the region in the last decades. The book will be of interest to academics, researchers, students and policymakers interested in the study of economic development in emerging economies and in particular in Latin America.

    Part 1: Trade Liberalization, Development and Regional Integration  1. Has Trade Liberalisation in Poor Countries Delivered the Promises Expected? Penélope Pacheco-López and A.P. Thirlwall  2. Beyond the Washington Consensus: The Quest for an Alternative Development Paradigm for Latin America Ignacio Perrotini-Hernández, Juan Alberto Vázquez-Muñoz and Blanca L. Avendaño-Vargas  3. Foreign Trade and Per Capita Income: New Evidence for Latin America and the Caribbean Humberto Ríos-Bolívar and Omar Neme-Castillo  4. Regional Integration and its Effects on Inward FDI in Developing Countries: A Comparison Between North-South (Mexico) and South-South (Brazil) Integration Thomas Goda  5. Trade Blocs as Determinants of Trade Flows in South American Countries: An Augmented Gravity Approach Clemente Hernandez-Rodriguez  Part 2: Trade Reforms and Development Experience: Case Studies in Latin America  6. Downhill or the Long Agony of Argentinean Development Alcino Ferreira Câmara-Neto and Matías Vernengo  7. The Determinants of FDI in Chile: A Gravity Model Approach Matteo Grazzi  8. Assessment of the Distributive Impact of Trade Reforms in Uruguay Fernando Borraz, Daniel Ferrés and Máximo Rossi  Part 3: Economic liberalization, Development and Growth in Mexico  9. Economic Liberalization and Income Distribution: Theory and Evidence in Mexico Gerardo Angeles-Castro  10. How Risk Factors Affect Growth in Mexico: A Free-Market Liberalism Approach Francisco Venegas-Martínez  11. Anti-Inflationary Policy and Financial Fragility, a Microeconomic Analysis: The Case of Mexico, 1990 – 2004 Ignacio Perrotini-Hernández, Blanca Lilia Avendaño-Vargas and Juan Alberto Vázquez-Muñoz  12. Technological Innovation and Sectoral Productivity in the Mexican Economy: Regional Evidence José Carlos Trejo-García, Humberto Ríos-Bolívar and Ana Lilia Valderrama-Santibáñez  13. The Robustness of Okun’s Law: Evidence from Mexico. A Quarterly Validation, 1985.1–2006.4 Eduardo Loría and Leobardo de Jesús

    Biography

    Gerardo Angeles-Castro is Head of Research and Postgraduate Studies at the School of Economics at Instituto Politécnico Nacional, México.

    Ignacio Perrotini-Hernández is Professor and Chair of the Graduate Faculty of Economics at Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México.

    Humberto Ríos-Bolivar is Research Economist at the School of Economics at Instituto Politécnico Nacional, México.