This paper analyzes the structural reform process that has been taking place in Uruguay since the return to democracy in 1985. Three main questions oriented the research: why reform? what kind of reform? and, how well did the reform perform? The main focus is on the pro-market reforms as they...

The process of globalization has brought a major change in the international economy, and the scope of feasible trade between countries has broadened. Global value chains combine participation by geographically disperse suppliers in the production of modern manufactures characterized by an...

Some countries seem to be lagging behind in global accumulation of skills. As the ratio of skilled to unskilled labour is key for growth (e.g. endogenous growth theory), this situation suggests a gloomy future for developing countries. Is catching up with the developed world?s levels of skills...

When the process of trade liberalisation started in Brazil in the late 1980s, a regime of temporary trade protection was put in place. This paper describes the use of TTB by Brazilian’s authority over the last two decades. We found them to be highly concentrated in a few sectors and to heavily...

The ratio of skill to unskilled labour stocks in the economy is widely acknowledged to have an important role for development. Can education policy affect the evolution of this ratio? This paper shows that it can, and it also shows that the actual effect of education policy depends on the...

The basic goal of this paper is to develop an endogenous trade policy model in the Grossman and Helpman (1994) tradition that could endogenise the number of lobby groups in the economy. The game has three stages. In the first stage, the consumer that owns a specific factor decides whether to...

This paper sheds some light on two issues related to recent the multilateral trade agreements (Ronda Uruguay of GATT and the creation of WTO). First, are they binding for the design of trade policies in Uruguay? Second, how have they posed restrictions on these policies? In the first chapter a...