In October 2000, the twelve countries of South America launched, a multinational, multisectoral and multidisciplinary initiative, whose main objective is to develop the region's infrastructure within a context of environmental sustainability. Supported by the Inter-American Development Bank...

This paper discusses the impacts of integration on productivity, specifically within regional agreements. The paper focuses on the economies of Brazil and Mexico and on their performance in the manufacturing sector. The authors estimate firm-level productivity and test its casual links with...

What are the main issues in Chile's trade agenda? This paper argues that the country's agenda does not lend itself to that traditional kind of policy advice usually given throughout Latin America. Protection is low and uniform, institutions that govern trade policy are strong and well protected...

Economic and political integration have been a perennial and neuralgic issue in the Caribbean agenda. This paper draws on the literature on trade, growth and regional agreements to discuss the motivation behind the Caribbean drive for integration, the results obtained so far and what is in stock...

Unfulfilled expectations about economic growth in Brazil has led many observers to question the ability of the new, open trade regime to put the economy back on a path of sustainable growth. Whereas the country's growth record has been really poor, the evidence suggests that the underlying...

Manufacturing in Latin America and the Caribbean region (LAC) faces severe competitive stresses as it integrates into the global economy. It is not, on the whole, coping well. Though it was the first region in the developing world - in the post-war era - to liberalize on international trade and...

La producción industrial en la región de América Latina y el Caribe (ALC) se enfrenta a una competencia muy severa e intensa a medida que se integra a la economía global. En líneas generales, la región no está manejando la situación muy bien. A pesar de ser ésta la primera región en el...

A pesar de la abundancia de literatura teórica sobre los aspectos distributivos de las políticas comerciales preferenciales, en la literatura aplicada reciente, el tema de cómo instrumentar políticas para tratar las asimetrías en el marco de los procesos de integración regional reluce por...

China¿s emergence has raised pointed questions about the future of manufacturing in Latin America. This paper looks at this challenge and its implications. It begins by asking: Does manufacturing still matter for Latin America? It argues that the region cannot afford to turn its back to a...