Competing in the world economy does not automatically boost a nation's productivity and restructure its economy. Such progress requires mobilizing capital, employment, technology and knowledge. Opportunities beyond the business realm must be fully exploited to the benfit of society as a whole....

Regional integration initiatives have long been part of the world economic landscape. In Latin America, integration flourished in the early post-war era but then lost momentum until the 1990s, when there was a new wave of initiatives ranging from free trade areas to customs unions. This Report...

The country studies and their background papers included in this book were prepared for the Latin America and the Caribbean section of the "Global Research Project: Explaining Growth" of the Global Development Network (GDN), a research effort conducted in association with the Latin American and...

This paper presents theory and evidence on the relationship between inequality and institutional quality. We propose a model in which the two dynamically reinforce each other and set out to test this relationship with a broad array of institutional measures. We establish double causality between...

Poorer countries have a much smaller public sector and correspondingly a smaller tax burden than richer countries, yet, their economic performance has not been necessarily better. Using a simple model, this paper suggests that the growth and welfare effects of taxation are mediated through...

This paper uses a large cross-country survey of business firms to assess their influence on government policies. It is found that influence is associated with larger, government-owned firms that have a high degree of ownership concentration. In contrast, foreign ownership matters little. It is...

The IDB's Integration & Trade Journal includes articles on the different aspects of integration in Latin America and the Caribbean, on hemispheric integration and, furthermore, on similar processes in other parts of the world. The aim is to address the topics included herein from a remarkably...

In the first eight decades of the 20th century, Brazil ranked among the countries with highest growth rates in the world. During the period 1930-80, in particular, it managed to reduce its per capita income gap vis-à-vis industrialized economies and seemed poised to escape underdevelopment...

This paper studies the joint effect of economic and political inequalities on redistributive taxation and institutional quality. The theoretical model suggests that income inequality, coupled with political bias in favor of the rich, decreases redistribution and lowers institutional quality. The...

The country studies and their background papers included in this book were prepared for the Latin America and the Caribbean section of the "Global Research Project: Explaining Growth" of the Global Development Network (GDN), a research effort conducted in association with the Latin American and...