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Economía
"La importancia de América Latina en la economía mundial es cada vez mayor. Con un comercio exterior anual de 1,2 billones de dólares -equivalente al 71% del comercio exterior de China, una captación anual de flujos de inversión extranjera directa de 72.000 millones de dólares y remesas anuales de por lo menos 48.000 millones de dólares, América Latina es uno de los principales motores de la globalización"
José Angel Gurría, Secretario-General de la OCDE
Los recientes resultados económicos de América Latina presentan un panorama lleno de contrastes.Al igual que en el resto del planeta, la globalización ha sido un importante motor para el desarrollo y el crecimiento. Las reformas estructurales adoptadas durante las pasadas décadas han contribuido a abrir losmercados internos y amejorar la gestión macroeconómica. En el año 2006, América Latina recibió inversiones extranjeras directas por un valor récord de $72.5 mil millones. Las tasas de crecimiento en algunos países latinoamericanos se están acercando a los elevados ritmos de crecimiento observables en la región asiática.
Al mismo tiempo que la importancia de su papel en la economía mundial aumenta, Latinoamérica se está convirtiendo en un interlocutor clave para la OCDE. México fue el primer país de la región en ingresar en la organización, en 1994. En la actualidad, Chile está embarcado en el proceso de ingreso a la OCDE, mientras Brasil es candidato a reforzar su colaboración con la organización, con vistas a un posible ingreso en el futuro.
A lo largo de los últimos diez años, México ha logrado avances significativos hacia la estabilidad macroeconómica, habiendo puesto en marcha importantes reformas estructurales para abrir adicionalmente al economía al comercio y mejorar el funcionamiento de los mercados de bienes y servicios, así como para desarrollar al sector financiero. Estos esfuerzos han fructificado en un desempeño relativamente favorable. Luego de un sólido desempeño en 2006, se espera que el crecimiento de la producción resulte cercano al nivel potencial de entre 3.5 y 4 por ciento durante los próximos dos años. Sin embargo, el crecimiento potencial del PIB resulta demasiado bajo para lograr cerrar la brecha en el nivel de vida con respecto a los países más ricos de la OCDE y abordar el problema persistente de la extensa pobreza. A fin de movilizar a la economía hacia un camino de crecimiento mayor y sostenible, se requiere un nuevo esfuerzo en el terreno de las reformas en un espectro amplio.
Chile sigue registrando un desempeño robusto. Una gestión macroeconómica ejemplar continúa proporcionando sólidas finanzas públicas y una baja, aunque recientemente creciente, inflación. El proceso de reforma estructural avanza, e incluye desde mejoras regulatorias hasta un fortalecimiento de la protección social, incluyendo una muy necesaria reforma al sistema de pensiones. El crecimiento está en aumento, lo que contribuye a reducir aún más la todavía considerable brecha de ingresos per cápita de Chile en comparación con los países de la OCDE, a reducir la pobreza y a mejorar la distribución del ingreso. El principal desafío de Chile en cuanto a políticas es sostener un crecimiento a largo plazo impulsado por la productividad por medio de continuas iniciativas de reforma estructural.
Considerable progress has been made in Brazil in recent years in achieving macroeconomic stability and
restructuring the economy. Productivity has risen since the macroeconomic stabilisation of the
mid-1990s and the implementation of a series of structural reforms. But Brazil’s GDP growth performance (about 2.5% per year on average since 1995) nevertheless needs to improve to close a widening income gap relative to the OECD area. Reaping the full benefits of stabilisation in terms of faster growth will require consolidating macroeconomic adjustment, boosting innovation in the business sector and stepping up formal labour utilisation.
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Comercio
The external financing of Brazilian imports
On average, the role of export-credit operations (ECOs) in the Brazilian economy has been modest: during the 1985-89 period they involved only 2.57 per cent of total Brazilian imports, highly concentrated in "equipment" (excluding transport, but including government services), "cereals" and "coal", with the United States, Canada and France being the most important partners (covering on average 88.5 per cent of the total).
The subsidy, in principle, corresponds to the value of the difference between repayments according to market and "soft" conditions, that is, the difference between interest payments without and with soft terms. However, problems arise because (i) soft loans are not always made available as soon as they are agreed upon, (ii) such loans usually benefit from a grace period, (iii) the interest rate on the loan and the discount factor can change over time, and, last but not least, (iv) ex-ante evaluations of the benefit are hard to capture by looking at ex-post data.
Finally, the importance of the subsidy varies with the time it is taken into account by the beneficiary. At least three cases are possible: the recipient may decide to adjust his economic behaviour (i) when the soft loan has been agreed upon, (ii) when it has been disbursed, (iii) gradually, as the loan is paid back, that is, the subsidy is perceived as a yearly benefit which materializes as interest is paid back. Arriba
Educación
Gender, Human Capital and Growth: Evidence from Six Latin American Countries
The OECD examined the patterns and determinants of rapidly rising educational attainment in six Latin American countries — Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Mexico and Uruguay — all of which illustrate the sweeping transformations in growth, demographics and education now occurring in much of the world. It finds that rising per capita output, through a mechanism which induces women to join the labour force and interacts with falling family size, acts as the key factor leading to mounting educational achievement.
This in fact highlights the role of women in basic household microeconomic decisions with powerful economic and social effects — decisions about female labour-force participation and family shifts from notions of “quantity” (large families) to those of “quality” (fewer children, with more investment in health and education). It carries important implications for explaining the rising marginal productivity of labour in a sizeable slice of the developing world. arriba
PISA y América Latina
Hay todavía mucho por hacer en términos de ofrecerle a los niños y a los jóvenes mexicanos las herramientas indispensables para crecer y desarrollarse en un mundo cada vez más integrado y más competitivo. México presenta deficiencias muy importantes en materia de logro educativo. Resulta también clara, la necesidad de emprender acciones que permitan mejorar los horizontes individuales y colectivos de los mexicanos. La experiencia de otros países indica que PISA puede ser una palanca para impulsar mejoras significativas en tiempos relativamente cortos. La OCDE le ofrece este recurso a todos los países participantes. Evidentemente, sin embargo, es responsabilidad de cada uno de esos países procesar los hallazgos, proponer soluciones y llevarlas al terreno de los hechos.
En el año 2000, la Organización para la Cooperación y el Desarrollo Económico (OCDE) realizó un estudio sobre la competencia de los alumnos de quince años en lectura, matemáticas y ciencias, con especial atención a la primera. Participaron los treinta países miembros del organismo, incluyendo México, más otros como Brasil y (con un año de retraso) Argentina, Chile y Perú. En el año 2003 el estudio se centró en las matemáticas, estando esta vez presentes México, Brasil y Uruguay, entre muchos otros países no miembros de la OCDE. Los estudios, bautizados como PISA (Program for International Student Assessement) permiten, por primera vez en la historia, comparar rigurosamente lo que los más diversos sistemas educativos han enseñado a sus alumnos de 15 años; por esto, y porque ponen en cuestión muchas ideas pedagógicas bien establecidas, están teniendo una enorme repercusión mundial.
¿Cuáles han sido los resultados de América Latina? Mucho más bajos que la media de la OCDE. Por convención, la media de la OCDE se sitúa en 500 puntos. En el primer estudio, centrado en la lectura, las medias de los países latinoamericanos fueron: Argentina 421; Brasil 398; Chile 411; México 423; Perú 329. Las medias de Portugal y España, fueron también más bajas que las de los países de la OCDE, pero no tanto: 472 y 493 puntos, respectivamente. En el segundo estudio, centrado en las matemáticas, los alumnos mexicanos han obtenido una puntuación media de 385 puntos, los brasileños de 356 y los uruguayos de 422. Las medias de España y Portugal, fueron esta vez de 466 y 485, respectivamente.
Educación y nuevas tecnologías en América Latina
Todos estamos comprometidos, en el norte y en el sur, a actuar frente a las profundas transformaciones que representa la sociedad de la información y el conocimiento. La educación está en la base de este desafío. Mientras en América Latina aún enfrentamos la tarea de asegurar las metas de una educación para todos, al mismo tiempo tenemos que abordar las nuevas tareas que nos impone la revolución digital.
Para más información, consultar el sitio web del CERI o visitar la página web del seminario "Las Tecnologías de Información y Comunicación y los Desafíos de Aprendizaje en la Sociedad del Conocimiento"
Educación superior en América Latina: la dimensión internacional
La globalización ha intentado varias veces reformar la educación superior en América Latina. pero la región sigue al margen de los centros de investigación internacionales y de la divulgación de los conocimientos. La OCDE estudió a fondo los retos que tiene América Latina para convertirse en un centro del conocimiento que el mundo conozca, evaluando el desarrollo general de la educación superior en la región respecto a diferentes factores, como planes de estudio, redes educativas y movilidad de profesores y estudiantes. Con base en estos estudios de la educación superior en siete países (Argentina, Brasil, Chile, Colombia, Cuba, méxico y Perú), la OCDe junto con el Banco Mundial publicó un libro que hace enfasis en las oportunidades de ubicar el perfil de América Latina en el escenario global.
Las políticas nacionales de educación: República Dominicana
La reforma del sistema educativo es una prioridad para la República Dominicana como respuesta a la presión de la mundialización y las exigencias de la sociedad del conocimiento. Con el declive de sectores de la economía tradicional como el azúcar y las minas, el desarrollo del turismo, la entrada en la Organización Mundial del Comercio (1995) y la posible participación al Acuerdo de Libre Comercio de América Central ya se reconoce que la educación es un factor decisivo para el desarrollo sostenible de la economía. Durante los últimos quince años se realizaron progresos significativos en materia de reformas tanto de la educación obligatoria como de la educación superior... arriba
Desarrollo
The Latin American Economic Outlook (LEO) will be the flagship publication of the OECD Development Centre on Latin America, bringing the region to the forefront of the OECD’s work on development by working in conjunction with other OECD Directorates. Building on the Development Centre’s expertise, the LEO will promote effective policy dialogue on Latin American development issues between the OECD and Latin American countries. While the focus topics of the 2008 LEO remains to be defined, the 2007 Latin American Economic Outlook will concentrate on the following areas:
Policy for development: Analysing public policies, mainly taxation and fiscal reform, and their coherence for the economic and social development of the region.
Financing for development: Presenting best practices in innovative sources of finance, with a particular look at the role of institutional investors, pension funds, and the growing importance of remittances and private foundations.
Business for development: Assessing the contribution of the private sector to development in Latin America, reviewing the impact of OECD companies in Latin America and the emerging role of Latin American firms in the global scene.
Trade for development. Examining the impact of international trade and foreign investment changing patterns on Latin America, particularly the implications of increasing trade with China and India and the internationalisation of activity in the entire region.
The Latin American Outlook will be published in partnership with the Iberoamerican General Secretariat (SEGIB), and it will be launched at the 9 November 2007 annual Iberoamerican Summit in Santiago de Chile. It will be the culmination of a series of activities including new research, the production of reports and publications, experts’ meetings and conference events. The LEO will foster collaboration and partnerships with other agents working on Latin American issues, including other multilateral institutions, governments, think thanks, academics, private-sector research departments, corporations and foundations.
Podcast: Latin American Economic Outlook
Las Inversiones en y desde América Latina
Convergence and divergence of sovereign bond spread: lessons from Latin America
Latin American sovereign bonds represent a significant share of the emerging debt class (50 per cent by early 2001) and so have considerably shaped the dynamics of this market. Recent financial turmoil, contagion episodes and investors’ renewed concerns with debt default call for a better understanding of sovereign bond pricing (spreads) and its determinants, either macro fundamentals, contagion or other external variables. This paper addresses two important questions not fully tackled in the existing
literature: i) to what extent do permanent or transitory changes in fundamentals affect sovereign risk perception, i.e. default risk, once contagion is controlled for? ii) how can a relatively high and volatile spread be the cause of unsustainable public debt accumulation? In order to answer these questions, we estimate long-term structural equations to pin down country risk determinants for Argentina, Chile and Mexico, using a time series framework spanning 1994-2000. Unlike former empirical work, we split fundamental variables into permanent and transitory components. Second, we explore through a vector error correction model (VECM) the short-term and long-term dynamics of the debt sustainability equation in Argentina and Mexico in order to assess how large the destabilising role of comparatively high spreads has been. Our main findings boil down to i) permanent changes in fundamental variables weigh most while contagion effects remain significant; ii) non-sustainable public sector deficits (increasing interest burden) plus insufficient economic growth and excessive risk premia are shown to have triggered explosive debt dynamics.
Choice of an exchange-rate arrangement, institutional setting and inflation: empirical evidence from Latin America
The debate about whether fixed or flexible exchange-rate regimes are better suited to guaranteeing stability has received added stimulus from the macroeconomic crisis in Argentina. This paper argues that it is misleading solely to concentrate on exchange-rate policy to assess the preconditions for stability in an international surrounding. Instead, the exchange-rate regime and the institutional setting have to be compatible to increase the former’s credibility and to contribute to stability. This hypothesis is empirically tested for Latin American countries.
The exchange-rate regime and the institutional setting are linked to form an ex ante proxy for the credibility of the exchange-rate arrangement. We specify the exchange-rate regimes and institutions in Latin America from 1975 to the late 1990s prior to an empirical assessment of the hypothesis. Finally, the Argentine case is discussed specifically. Policy conclusions round off the paper.
¿Macondo global?
América Latina está de nuevo en una encrucijada. Dos tentaciones igualmente poderosas azotan a la región. Por un lado está el grupo de los países cuyo oscuro deseo es rechazar los encantos de la burguesía global, tachada de imperialista. Por otro, están los que apostaron por una inmersión total en el mundo globalizado...
China: ¿Oportunidad o amenaza para América Latina?
Para América Latina, el crecimiento de China en el comercio mundial constituye a la vez una amenaza y una oportunidad. En 2005, la economía china llegó a ocupar el cuarto lugar mundial, superando al Reino Unido. En menos de 20 años, la tasa de crecimiento del Producto Interno Bruto (PIB) se ha elevado a casi 9.5 por ciento y su participación en el comercio mundial ha avanzado de un escaso 1 a más de 6 por ciento.
A su vez, en los últimos años, China ha sido el foco principal de quejas antidumping. Los bajos costos de su mano de obra y su consiguiente competitividad son mal vistos por varias economías emergentes, y algunas hasta culpan al país asiático por el pobre desempeño de sus propias exportaciones.
Por otra parte, el enorme mercado interno chino representa una oportunidad. De hecho, en la mayoría de los países latinoamericanos las exportaciones a este país han aumentado notablemente. Por ejemplo, China se ha convertido en el mercado de mayor crecimiento para las exportaciones de Brasil, cuadriplicando su comercio bilateral en sólo cuatro años.
Tigres y Dragones en América latina
China es sin duda el más espectacular de los BRICs, esas economías super-emergentes que además abarcan Brasil, Rusia e India. El número exacto de estos jugadores emergentes, con impacto global, está en debate, México, Turquía o Sudáfrica siendo otros serios candidatos para incorporar el selecto club inventado por Goldman Sachs.
Sin embargo, no cabe duda que dentro de estos superemergentes, destaca la economía la economía China. Su impacto alcanza todos los rincones del planeta, incluso los más remotos de África o de América latina, señalado en varios informes del Centro de Desarrollo de la OCDE recién publicados1. La amplitud del vuelo del dragón chino sin embargo puede que nos impida vislumbrar el paso y el peso que está cobrando el elefante indio, incluso en regiones tan remotas como América latina. arriba
Competitividad
The Latin American Competition Forum is organised jointly with the Inter-American Development Bank which provides most of the funding. The Forum promotes dialogue, consensus building and networking between competition policymakers and law enforcers, and the identification and dissemination of best practices in competition law and policy in a collegial setting. Emphasis is on sharing experience. Participants are senior officials of Latin American competition institutions. Competition experts from OECD countries and international organisations are included to provide additional perspectives and experience.
Specialisation, technical change and competitiveness in the Brazilian electronics industry
The Brazilian electronics industry operates within a policy regime which has promoted excessive diversification rather than concentrating on developing strong technological capabilities in appropriate areas. The international competitiveness of most segments of the electronics industry declined sharply during the first half of the 1980s. Four major sectors of the electronics industry are examined here: microelectronics, banking automation, colour TVs, and public digital exchanges. In microelectronics, the focus of specialisation should be on the design of application specific integrated circuits (ASICs). To support those design efforts with an efficient local IC fabrication capacity, the government needs to forge a cooperative arrangement among producers to enable the establishment of a silicon foundry of efficient scale. In banking automation, which is highly software and engineering intensive, firms could be expected to diversify into point-of-sale automation, without giving high priority to the local manufacture of the standard hardware components of such systems. Colour TV production continues to rely heavily on foreign technology, and local producers have not been able to break into export markets. If Brazilian firms could incorporate locally designed ASICs into their TVs, they could lessen their dependence on foreign consumer electronics firms and differentiate their products more effectively. Finally, in the case of public digital exchanges, the research program has been too broad, and the resources too small for the task. Nevertheless, the local development effort has generated certain benefits. arriba
Gobierno Corporativo
The Latin American Roundtable on Corporate Governance and its Companies Circle will meet in Medellin, Colombia in 2007 and in a location to be determined in 2008 to promote the implementation of the OECD Principles of Corporate Governance and the Latin American White Paper on Corporate Governance. The Companies Circle, a group of 13 leading Latin American companies associated with the Roundtable, is developing a practical guide to implementation of the corporate governance principles for the private sector, and is promoting this implementation through a series of awareness-raising events. The Roundtable convenes policy-makers, regulators, corporate governance associations, and the private sector from Latin American and OECD countries to exchange information on good policy and practice, and to build support for corporate governance reforms in the region. Subject to additional voluntary funding, it is also proposed to develop a network to promote state-owned enterprise governance in Latin America, with an initial project to focus on improving transparency at Codelco, Latin America’s largest SOE, and subsequent work to develop a survey of policies and practices in the region.
The Emergence of Latin Multinationals
The corporate world has changed remarkably in the past ten years. New multinationals are emerging in countries such as Brazil, India, China, South Africa and Mexico. The entire global corporate chessboard is rapidly being altered. In Latin America, Mexico and Brazil are the key drivers.
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Impuestos / Inversión
In addition to the multilateral work at the OECD’s Multilateral Tax Centres – see Global Forum on Taxation section – and work with Brazil, two events are planned with Argentina and Chile on international issues in 2007 and two further events will take place in 2008, but specific topics will be decided on in September 2007. The focus of both events will be transfer pricing, though the event in Chile will also include other international tax areas in the tax audit context.
An event will be held together with CIAT in April 2007 on the exchange of information, hosted by Guatemala. It will follow up on the successful event on this topic hosted by Brazil in 2006 and will focus on the implementation of exchange mechanisms in the context of the new Article 26 of the Model Tax Convention, which provides the most widely accepted legal basis for bilateral exchange of information for tax purposes.
During the November 2006 Global Forum on International Investment meeting, held in Istanbul, the Minister of Trade for Costa Rica indicated his country’s willingness to take the lead in conducting a PFI-based self-assessment. This assessment would be undertaken in the context of a Regional Roundtable on options for putting the PFI into action in Latin America planned for late 2007. It could be followed up by a PFI-based country assessment of Peru in 2008. Subsequently, a Regional Roundtable would be held on the experience gained in using the PFI in a Latin American context, which would include a follow-up review of progress in implementing the PFI-recommendations in the 2007 Costa Rica review. The expected outcomes of these events would include two Latin American PFI-based country assessments, the first follow-up review of the implementation of the recommendations from the Costa Rica PFI review and assorted conference papers on PFI implementation in Latin America commissioned for the Regional Roundtables. arriba
Gobierno
Beyond economies, measuring government activity is important because of the size of its activities and, consequently, the need to understand what it is achieving with their very significant expenditures. Latin American countries will do work with a view to becoming part of this overall OECD project at a later stage. arriba
Anti-corrupción
In association with the Organisation of American States as well as the Inter-American Development Bank, the OECD will continue to strengthen the implementation and enforcement of anti-corruption conventions, i.e. the OECD Convention on Combating Bribery of Foreign Public Officials in International Business Transactions, the Inter-American Convention Against Corruption and United Nations Convention Against Corruption. arriba
Estudios Territoriales
With respect to Central America, there have been requests for country-specific follow up work with countries that participated in the OECD’s Territorial review of the Mesoamerican region (published 2007), such as Costa Rica and Honduras. The Secretariat is discussing options with the countries concerned.
Chile has recently become an Observer to the Territorial Development Policy Committee and has requested a review of its regional policy. The timing of this review is currently being negotiated.
The region of São Paulo is also a candidate for a metropolitan review (Timing also under negotiation). arriba
Medio Ambiente
Environmental Performance Reviews and derived products
It is planned to support the development of an Environmental Performance Review programme of UN-ECLAC for the region Latin America and the Caribbean, and to conduct jointly an environmental review of Brazil with UN-ECLAC. arriba
Agricultura
OECD Review of Agricultural Policies: Chile
Chile has made important progress in raising incomes and reducing poverty, and more recently in narrowing income inequality too. The key to this strong economic performance has been sound
macroeconomic management, institutional and structural reforms, trade openness, and the prudent management of mineral resources (principally copper).
The agricultural sector, in conjunction with related downstream activities, has played a key role in Chile’s economic success. Yet while the incomes of agricultural households have increased, smallscale
farmers have seen little change in their farm incomes, with most of the gains coming from improved off-farm opportunities.
Agriculture as a whole has benefited from an open trading environment, characterised by a uniform MFN tariff of 6%, and an average effective tariff of about 2% resulting from a wide network of preferential trade agreements. Agriculture has received no more protection than other sectors, with the exception of commodities covered by the country’s price band system (wheat, wheat flour and sugar). In recent years, protection has been low for these products too, as a result of high world prices and (ongoing) policy reforms.
Support provided to producers is low compared with other OECD countries, with an average %PSE (producer support as a share of gross farm receipts) of 5% in 2004-06 – a similar figure to the estimates for Australia and Brazil. Budgetary payments have dominated producer support in recent years, with relatively little use of market price support. Total support to the agricultural sector also imposes a milder burden on the economy than in most OECD countries, accounting for 0.4% of GDP between 2003 and 2005, compared with an OECD average of 1.2%.
Government expenditures on agriculture have nevertheless more than trebled in real terms over the past ten years. About half of that spending is on public goods, while the other half consists of measures which aim to make Chile’s poorer farmers commercially competitive. The spending on public goods includes essential investments that help raise agricultural competitiveness and protect the country’s environment and natural resource base. But the fact that money is spent on public goods does not itself guarantee that policies are effective, and there is a need for a more systematic evaluation of policy performance.
Payments to improve small-scale farmers’ commercial viability need to be based on a realistic assessment of who is potentially competitive within the sector, and to target that constituency. For future generations, that group is likely to be a minority of smallholders. For the majority, the main requirements are for non-agricultural policies that help them diversify their incomes and find better paid jobs outside the sector. In most cases the ultimate aim should be to transform the poorer family farm into a structure in which the farm operation may be retained, but family members (especially sons and daughters) develop the opportunities to obtain higher paid skilled employment. Recently introduced smallholder credit policies that focus on correcting underlying market failures represent a more productive use of resources than traditional credit subsidies.
Two-thirds of agriculture-dependent households are headed by salaried farm workers, and these households have similar incomes to the poorest farm households. While salaried farm workers may
benefit from the increased employment opportunities offered by agricultural growth, the long-term priority is similarly to help them get better paid (skilled) work, within the agribusiness sector or
elsewhere.
Agricultural policies therefore need to be framed within an economy-wide context, and consistent with other policies, such as regional initiatives and social safety nets. As agricultural spending by the Ministry of Agriculture is increasingly complemented by the outlays of other ministries and agencies, the need for close co-operation across branches of government becomes ever more
essential.
Structural adjustment and the institutional dimensions of agricultural research and development in Brazil: soybeans, wheat and sugar cane
Structural adjustment, liberalisation and the pressures of technological change are having major impact on the institutional organisation of the agro-industrial sector. In industrialised countries, the private sector is positioned to play the vanguard role in the next generation of agricultural technologies. Thus, the ability to promote and sustain new patterns of co-operation in research and development between the private and the public sectors will be a key determinant of future patterns of competitiveness. The OECD attempts to identify the main lines of technological and organisational innovation at present under way in important sectors of the Brazilian agricultural research system. It focuses on three crops -- soybeans, wheat and sugar -- which are strategic from the point of view of structural adjustment and liberalisation and at the same time involve both export and domestic markets.
Biotechnology and developing country agriculture: maize in Brazil
With annual production averaging over 20 million metric tons, Brazil is the second largest developing country producer of maize (after China) and the third largest in the world. This report analyses development and dissemination of maize research and technology in Brazil, from a socio-economic and politico-institutional perspective. Irt concentrates therefore on agents and factors which influence development of research and its productive application.
Biotechnology and Sustainable Agriculture: The Case of Mexico
Agriculture and the economic cycle: an economic and econometric analysis with special reference to Brazil
This study provides an economic and econometric analysis of agriculture in the economic cycle, with special reference to the recent experience of Brazil. Part One of the paper discusses the economic theory and points to the relevance of classical texts for analysis of agriculture's role in the economic crisis facing developing countries. Part Two of the paper tests the hypothesis that agriculture exercises a stabilising role in the economic cycle using statistical and econometric procedures. It offers a novel application of tests of cointegration and stationarity and concludes on this basis that agriculture does indeed exercise a stabilising role in the economic cycle. arriba
Pensiones
OECD has developed a substantial programme of policy dialogue and capacity building to promote modern, open and sound insurance and private pensions systems in emerging markets and developing economies. This work has been developed on a global, regional and country basis, with the support of substantial voluntary contributions, notably from Japan and the International Pension Foundation. Analytical work will be undertaken on issues where emerging economies could benefit from the experience of the Insurance and Private Pensions Committee, and OECD good practices for regulation and market access. Issues of particular relevance to emerging economies, such as management of large-scale risks, private pensions or financial education, may also be included. Closer dialogue through expert meetings will be promoted with key insurance and private pensions markets, including Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. In co-operation with the IAIS and the Asociacion de Supervisores de Seguros de America Latina (ASSAL): the eighth Conference on Insurance Regulation and Supervision in Latin America will be held in Rio de Janeiro on 9-11 May 2007. These conferences are organised once a year and gather high representatives of insurance supervisory and regulatory authorities in Latin America. Important issues to be debated during the 2007 conference will include the financial management of large-scale disasters, risk awareness and education on insurance issues, insurance regulatory reform, and the impact of life insurance products taxation.
Pension Reform: Lessons from Latin America
Pension reform is high on the agenda in countries around the world. More and more OECD countries are looking for solutions to deal with the increasing demographic burden and put pension financing on a financially sustainable track to maintain prosperity in ageing societies1. Containment of pension spending and the reduction of high contribution rates are also urgent issues for the transition countries in Central and Eastern Europe. In the developing countries of Asia, where pension systems are much more limited in size and scope, the financial crisis has painfully demonstrated the problems of weak financial systems coupled
with the absence of social safety nets; this situation makes the Latin American attempt at improving old age security and simultaneously fostering financial sector development particularly relevant for Asia. The OECD examined the early experience of the Latin American pension reforms and discussed their
implications for the reform discussion in other parts of the world.
¿Ha fracasado la reforma del sistema de pensiones en América Latina?
América Latina es pionera en el mundo en desarrollo en la reforma del sistema de pensiones. Desde que Chile lanzara este proceso en 1981, otros nueve países más de la región han pasado de sistemas de reparto públicos a sistemas privados de capitalización en cuentas individuales con contribuciones definidas. Tal y como muestra el informe Perspectivas Económicas de América Latina 2008, existen varias fórmulas de reforma en la región. Mientras en algunos países se ha sustituido completamente el antiguo sistema, en otros se han introducido fondos de pensiones de gestión privada facultativos. arriba
Tecnología de Información y Comunicaciones
Telecomunicaciones en América Latina: ¿pueden las multinacionales cerrar la brecha?
La entrada masiva en América Latina durante la década de los noventa de multinacionales del sector de las telecomunicaciones provenientes del mundo industrializado, así como el auge de multinacionales
autóctonas—multilatinas—en este sector, han dado un vuelco al panorama de las telecomunicaciones en la región. Hasta entonces, las diferencias con los países de la OCDE y los principales competidores asiáticos en materia de inversión y de índices de conectividad (número de teléfonos por cada 100 habitantes) no hacían sino crecer. arriba
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