On the Role of Productivity and Factor Accumulation in Economic Development in Latin America and the Caribbean

This paper combines development and growth accounting exercises with economic theory to estimate the relative importance of total factor productivity and the accumulation of factors of production in the economic development performance of Latin America. The region’s development performance is assessed in contrast with various alternative benchmarks, both advanced countries and peer countries in other regions. We find that total factor productivity is the predominant factor: low and slow productivity, as opposed to impediments to factor accumulation, is the key to understand Latin America’s low income relative to developed economies and its stagnation relative to other developing countries that are catching up. While policies easing factor accumulation would help improving productivity somewhat, for the most part, closing the productivity gap requires productivity-specific policies.