This paper aims at gaining deeper understanding of the possible effects of combined microfinance (CMF) on social and economic performance outcomes. By means of a case-study on the City of Bridgetown (COB), one of the leading credit unions in Barbados, it explores the possible limits, challenges...

Though models of political economy suggest that changes in political institutions, such as democratization, should have large effects on policies and economic outcomes, the empirical literature finds ambiguous results. It is important, however, to ‘unbundle’ democratic reforms into more...

A modified version of Lucas endogenous growth model is development, incorporating the Idea that recessions have a positive effect on productivity increase. This model predicts that autonomous changes in real wages have a positive and permanent effect on GDP. A structural vector-autoregression...

This paper presents an overview of the nature of the Brazilian Regional inequalities, focusing on some basic statistics and recent estimations that indicate that it arises mainly from differences on individual endowments (human capital) in the many regions, rather than on differences on the...

Most historical explanations of national development experiences assume a 'methodological nationalism' approach whereas different national performances are basically explained by State strategies. Developmental States are generally conceptualized as an autonomous entity distant from material...

El desarrollismo ha sido, dentro de la estrategia de sustitución de importaciones de América Latina, una estrategia “especial”, o diferente, sobre todo en Brasil y la Argentina. En Brasil, bajo la forma de desarrollismo nacional, se extendió hasta los años ’90; se puede afirmar que en...

Due to inadequate savings and binding borrowing constraints, income volatility can make households in developing countries particularly susceptible to economic hardship. We examine the role of remittances in either alleviating or increasing household income volatility using Mexican household...

This paper provides an overview of the political and economic context under which Mexico’s Progresa-Oportunidades was introduced to prelude the emergence of social assistance in Latin America. The paper identifies four distinctive features of the programme that were revolutionary in their own...

Initial estimates for the first quarter of 2009 indicate that the Mexican economy declined by 8.2 percent from the same period in 2008. The leading economic indicator index of INEGI, the national statistics institute, points to additional economic contraction in the coming months. The Consensus...

Based on a classical political economy, on Latin American structuralism, and on Gramscian perspective about the state this paper argues that national economic strategies are formed by particular interactions between institutions and economic structures and evolve according to social conflicts in...