The Bank has prepared a new set of strategies, presented in this volume, for the two overarching objectives established (Sustainable Economic Growth and Poverty Reduction and Promotion of Social Equity) and for each of the four priority areas highlighted in the Institutional Strategy...

This paper discusses Suriname's efforts in regional integration initiatives, starting in the 1990s. In the first section, the authors identify some concrete initiatives undertaken by Suriname to broaden and diversify its economic links, and highlight the many barriers that remain to be overcome...

This paper's main concern is to assess which "industrial policies" would be meaningful for Latin America nowadays. The first section introduces the theme while the second section considers definitions of "industrial policies" and their nature in the past. The third section centers on national...

Banks' market or 'trading' risks have increased noticeably over the past years, largely as a result of the growth of liquid assets on banks' balance sheets and the increase in banks' off-balance sheet activities. Well-publicized bank failures and significant capital losses have focussed further...

Baumol (1967) showed that the rate of growth of an economy slows down if a sector has lower productivity than others and the demand between goods is inelastic. This paper points out that trade is equivalent to technological progress in the tradable sector. Therefore an open economy has higher...

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...

This paper documents the income distribution changes experienced by Argentina during the last decades. Inequality substantially increased, and despite economic growth during some periods, poverty also went significantly up. Two types of episodes have shaped Argentina's income distribution: deep...

This presentation comments on John Weiss' Export Growth and Industrial Policy: Lesson from the East Asian Miracle Experience. The presentation took place at the 2005 LAEBA Second Annual Conference, Buenos Aires, Argentina, 28-29 November. The paper focuses on whether industrial policy is still...

This paper was prepared for the LAEBA 2005 second annual meeting in Buenos Aires, Argentina. It is meant to provide a framework for thinking systematically about innovation policies for development, without venturing into specific, recipe-like policy recommendations. It does so by identifying...