This paper discusses the major changes that took place in the key areas of structural economic policy in Latin America between 1985 and 2009 and presents a set of indexes that attempt to measure how favorable trade, financial, tax, privatization and labor policies are for the free working of...

During the past decade, structural polices in the region have been aimed increasingly at improving economic efficiency and reducing government interference in economic decisions. The effects of this shift have not yet been accurately evaluated due to the lack of systematic measurements of the...

Since the mid-1980s a profound change of direction in the structural policies of the region has taken place. The development model based on protecting national markets and state intervention was replaced by a set of policies aimed primarily at seeking to improve efficiency, facilitate the...

How does trade liberalization affect the wage gap between skilled workers and unskilled workers? The Heckscher-Ohlin (HO) trade model gives a prediction about the relation between wages and prices. However, its simple Stolper-Samuelson (SS) and Specific-Factors (SF) versions make opposite...

This study examines the determinants of technological innovation and its impact on firm labor productivity across six Latin American countries (Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Panama, and Uruguay) using micro data from innovation surveys. In line with the literature, in all countries...

The role of regional integration agreements as a determinant of the location of FDI has become an increasingly relevant issue for emerging economies. In Latin America, the largest effects are likely to be associated with the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA). In this regard, there are a...

This paper studies the impact of regional integration agreements (RIAs) on the location of foreign direct investment (FDI), using data on bilateral outward FDI stocks from the OECD International Direct Investment Statistics. The dataset covers FDI from 20 source countries, all of them from the...

This paper presents a model in which trade is motivated both by preference for variety and comparative advantages. This framework is used to analyze the welfare implications of trading blocs among countries with different endowments with and without transportation costs

This paper presents new empirical evidencesuggesting that the net effect of trade openness on output volatility is stabilizing. The methodology employed seeks to correct for the likely endogeneity of trade in this setting using gravity estimates as instrumental variables. The results confirm...