The Latin American Economic Outlook 2008 (LEO) is designed to be an indispensable reference on Latin America’s economic trends, challenges and opportunities. LEO 2008 is organized around four broad themes: policy coherence, finance, business, and trade. Within each of these four topics, the first LEO report focuses on one specific dimension: fiscal policy; pension reform; telecommunications, and the impact of growing trade with China and India. Containing innovative indicators and cross-regional case studies, LEO 2008 stimulates informed debate on how to maximize development opportunities in all these areas.

 

The initial indicators developed by LEO 2008 cover:

 

(1) Fiscal Policy and Legitimacy in Latin America: The confidence people place in fiscal policy measured as the percentage of respondents that trust that money from taxes is being well spent by the government.   (2) Pension Reform, Capital Markets and Corporate Governance: The impact of pension reform on national savings, capital markets and corporate governance as measured by the changes in a country's domestic savings behaviour and the degree of financial market deepening.   (3) Private Sector and Telecommunication Development: The effect of market-seeking private investments on telecommunications service access as measured by income-group weighted change in coverage.   (4) Economic Impact of China and India: Export competition and export opportunities as measured by a comparison of each Latin American country’s trade structure with that of China and India, using the coefficients of specialisation and conformity.

LEO 2008 will be presented in Santiago de Chile on November 7, 2007, in an event hosted by the United national Economic Comission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC). Presesentations in various Europeans and Latin American capitals during the end of 2007 and early 2008 will bring LEO 2008's conclusions and recommendations to a broader audience of policy makers, academics and the general public.