The book explores the impact of transport costs on trade in Latin America and the Caribbean, and argues that transport costs have assumed an unprecedented strategic importance to the region. The region can no longer rely solely on trade agreements, proximity, labor costs and an abundant supply...

Regional integration among asymmetric countries is a hot and burning policy topic worldwide. Deepening Integration in MERCOSUR analyzes the most important issues of economic integration and policy coordination that countries face as they advance towards deeper integration and are urged to...

The country studies and their background papers included in this book were prepared for the Latin America and the Caribbean section of the "Global Research Project: Explaining Growth" of the Global Development Network (GDN), a research effort conducted in association with the Latin American and...

Assessing the trade impacts of domestic transport costs is data demanding and analyses that examine the effects of road quality, a critical aspect in regional and public policy, practically do not exist in the international trade literature. The few studies available rely mostly on...

Our knowledge of the trade effects of domestic infrastructure is very limited. The reason is twofold. First, data needed to examine these effects are not readily available. Second, identifying such effects requires properly addressing potential endogeneity problems affecting the relationship...

This paper analyzes the long-run relationship between output collapsesdefined defined as GDP falling substantially below trendand total factor productivity (TFP), using a panel of 71 developed and developing countries during the period 1960-2003 to identify episodes of output collapse and...

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...

This paper examines the role of contracting institutions on the insertion of developing countries in international production networks and particularly on the prospects of LAC to source goods beyond the region's traditional patterns of specialization. We show that LAC's insertion in global...

Este informe, elaborado por el Sector Integración y Comercio del BID, propone reenfocar la agenda de América Latina y el Caribe (ALC) en materia de comercio. El análisis realizado busca traer al centro del debate de políticas los costos del comercio que tradicionalmente han sido rezagados a...

"La era de la productividad" describe de qué manera la baja productividad de América Latina y el Caribe impide que la región se ponga a la par de los países del mundo desarrollado. Los autores indagan más allá de las explicaciones macroeconómicas tradicionales y profundizan hasta llegar...