Nuevas series anuales de población de América Latina desde el siglo XIX hasta el 2000

El estudio de la población en América Latina es un tema central en la historiografía de la región, sin embargo, las distintas estimaciones existentes muestran importantes discrepancias para los siglos XIX y XX. A partir del contraste de distintas bases de datos, la principal contribución del artículo consiste en ofrecer nuevas series de población homogéneas para el conjunto de países de América Latina, junto a una detallada explicación de la obtención de los datos, así como un análisis de las discrepancias que las distintas fuentes muestran. Los países que aborda este trabajo son Argentina, Brasil, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Guatemala, Ecuador, Haití, Honduras, México, Nicaragua, Panamá, Paraguay, Perú, República Dominicana, Uruguay y Venezuela; a lo que se agrega la suma de todos ellos para obtener la población latinoamericana. Estas nuevas series pueden resultar de gran utilidad para reinterpretar la historia económica de América Latina en el largo plazo. The analysis of population levels in Latin America plays an important role in the regional historiography. The estimated series appeared until now offers huge discrepancies, therefore, we believe essential to provide homogeneous series for the 19th and the 20th centuries. In our work we shed new light on this issue, from an exhaustive study of the existing Latin American historical sources for the region. Along with a detailed explanation of the data collection, we also provide an analysis of the discrepancies and the accuracy of sources. The study offers data from 21 countries in Latin America: Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Guatemala, Ecuador, Haiti, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Dominican Republic, Uruguay and Venezuela. This new evidence can be a crucial information to revisit Latin American Economic History in the long run.

Universal Service Policies in Europe & Latam: Evidence on Bridging the Divide in Rural Areas

Broadband access is a key factor for economic and social development. However, providing broadband to rural areas is not attractive to private telecommunications operators due its low or zero investment return. To deal with broadband provision in rural areas, different governance systems based on private and public cooperation have appeared. This paper not only identifies and defines public and private cooperation models but also assesses their impact on overcoming the digital divide in rural areas. The results show that public ownership infrastructure under private management policy has had positive effects on reducing the broadband digital divide and being applied to areas with higher digital divide; subsides to private operators providers only positive effects on reducing broadband digital divide; but public infrastructure with public management programs did not. The results, obtained using quasi-experimental methods, suggest the importance of incentives and control mechanisms in broadband universal service provision plans.

Historia para la celebración: experiencias en la América Latina Contemporánea

Los artículos que integran este dossier abordan el uso de la historia para la organización de celebraciones en América Latina a partir del proceso de independencia. En el marco de la Historiografía Contemporánea, son las mencionadas ceremonias las que nos permiten reconstruir el papel ejercido por actores, hechos, diseños artísticos y diseños culturales, así como recuperar la fortaleza mantenida por algunas regiones que, en ocasiones, compitieron con los proyectos elaborados a nivel nacional. La conformación de las identidades, el liderazgo económico, la rememoración nostálgica a través de premios a la poesía, la evolución ideológica de sus participantes, la construcción de representantes del heroísmo o de la barbarie, el significado de los símbolos utilizados en las celebraciones, las ceremonias cuasi diplomáticas dedicadas a la reconstrucción y fortalecimiento de vínculos intercontinentales o internacionales, la función de la escuela como institución celebratoria básica, nos muestran las múltiples formas en que la historia (y la historiografía) ha servido para otorgar a las celebraciones un papel relevante en los procesos regionales de consolidación política y económica.

The Rise of democracy in Europe and the fight against mass poverty in Latin America: the implications for marxist thought of some recent mainstream papers

Recently a number of mainstream papers have treated the rise of democracy in 19th century Europe and its instability in Latin America in an eminently Marxist fashion. This paper sets out their implications for Marxist thought. With respect to Europe, Marx's emphasis on political action backed by the threat of violence is vindicated but his justification for socialism is not. With respect to Latin America, the unequal distribution of wealth is the cause of political instability that is, in turn, the root cause of mass poverty. In addition it is possible to explain some of the paradoxical characteristics of neo-liberalism and to make a weak argument for socialism in spite of its rejection in Europe.

Payments for environmental services in watersheds: insights from a comparative study of three cases in Central America

We have compared three cases of payments for water-related environmental services (PES) in Central America, in terms of socioeconomic background, opportunity costs of forest conservation and stakeholders’ perceptions on the conditions of water resources and other issues. We found that, in general, the foregone benefits from land uses alternative to forest cover are larger than the amount paid, which apparently contradicts the economic foundation of PES schemes. A number of possible explanations are explored. The results also suggest that trade-offs between different environmental and social goals are likely to emerge in PES schemes, posing some doubts on their ability to be multipurpose instruments for environmental improvement and rural development. We also found that PES schemes may work as a conflictresolution instrument, facilitating downstream -upstream problem solving, though at the same time they might introduce changes in social perceptions of property rights.

Material Flow Accounting in Chile, Ecuador, Mexico and Peru (1980-2000)

In this paper we compare the resource flows of Chile, Ecuador, Mexico and Peru between 1980 and 2000. In this time span, the domestic extraction of materials increased in the four countries, mainly due to the mining sector in Chile and Peru, biomass and oil in Ecuador and construction minerals in Mexico. Imports and exports increased too, due to the increasing integration in the international markets, prompted by the liberalization policies undertaken by the four countries between the late 1970s and the late 1990s. The four countries had a negative physical trade balance for most of the period analyzed, meaning that their exports exceeded their imports in terms of weight. However, the increase of imports reduced the physical deficit in Chile, Mexico and Peru. Ecuador’s physical deficit was the highest and did not decrease in the period analyzed. Also, a diversification of exports away from bulk commodities could be observed in Chile and Mexico, and to a lesser extent in Peru, whereas in Ecuador the export sector remained mainly based on oil and biomass. More research is needed to explore the environmental effects of this phenomenon. Also, the indirect flows associated to the direct physical flows deserve to be subject to further analysis.

Regulation in the Age of Globalization: The Difussion of Regulatory Agencies across Europe and Latin America

One of the most notable characteristics of the change in governance of the past two decades has been the restructuring of the state, most notably the delegation of authority from politicians and ministries to technocrats and regulatory agencies. Our unique dataset on the extent of these reforms in seven sectors in 36 countries reveals the widespread diffusion of these reforms in recent decades. In 1986 there were only 23 agencies across these sectors and countries (less than one agency per country); by 2002 this number had increased more than seven-fold, to 169. On average these 36 countries each have more than four agencies in the seven sectors studied. Yet the widespread diffusion of these reforms is characterized by cross-regional and cross-sectoral variations. Our data reveal two major variations: first, reforms are more widespread in economic regulation that in social spheres; second, regulatory agencies in the social spheres are more widespread in Europe than in Latin America. Why these variations in the spread of the reforms? In this paper we present for the first time the regulatory gaps across regions and sectors and then move on to offer some explanations for these gaps in a way that sheds some light on the nature of these reforms and on their limits. Our explanatory framework combines diffusion and structural explanations and in doing so sheds new light on the global diffusion of public policy ideas.

The Experience of European Integration and the Potential for Integration in South America

The experience of the European Union is the most significant and far-reaching among all attempts at regional integration. It is, therefore, the most likely to provide some lessons for those world regions that are just beginning this complex process. In turn, the Common Market of the South (MERCOSUR) and the Andean Community (CAN) are among the regional integration projects that have reached the greatest level of formal accomplishment after the EU. MERCOSUR is a customs union that aspires to become a common market, while avowing the commitment to advance towards political integration. For its part, CAN is a customs union that has already developed supranational institutions such as a Commission, a Parliament and a Court of Justice. In both cases, however, words have progressively tended to wander far from deeds. One reason underlying this phenomenon may be a misunderstanding of the European experience with integration. In this article, we discuss the theories that have been developed to account for integration in Europe and may prove useful to understand integration elsewhere and put forward a set of lessons that could be drawn from the European experience. Subsequently, we introduce a description of the experience of integration in South America and reflect (critically) on how the theories and lessons drawn from the EU could be applied to this region –and beyond.

Hillary Clinton, un sueño americano en femenino

Aquest treball analitza quins trets de la personalitat de la Hillary Rodham Clinton han influït en la creació de la seva imatge pública i quines estratègies de comunicació l'han convertit, d'entre totes les dones del panorama polític d'Estats Units, en la primera dona candidata a la presidència.

Publicació científica : política sobre l'accés obert

El següent informe revela la necessitat d'establir una política europea sobre la publicació d'accés obert. Per començar, es fan unes recomanacions sobre el paper que hauria de jugar la Comissió com a entitat finançadora, política i de suport d'aquest tipus de publicació. Aquesta política europea, un cop establerta, s'hauria de desplegar per fases, donada la seva complexitat, i es proposa començar per la recerca feta en el marc del programa FP7 i de la recerca finançada amb fons públics. Es defineixen els conceptes clau relacionats amb la publicació d'Accés Obert i després s'analitzen les polítiques sobre l'accés obert. Finalment, s'analitza també l'estat de la qüestió de l'accés obert dins la comunitat investigadora i s'apunten unes directrius que hauria de seguir la política europea.

Private Governance of Financial Markets: the US Regulatory Regime on Hedge Funds

The article investigates the private governance of financial markets by looking at the evolution of the regulatory debate on hedge funds in the US market. It starts from the premise that the privatization of regulation is always the result of a political decision and analyzes how this decision came about and was implemented in the case of hedge funds. The starting point is the failure of two initiatives on hedge funds that US regulators launched between 1999 an 2004, which the analysis explains by elaborating the concept of self-capture. Facing a trade off between the need to tackle publicly demonized issues and the difficulty of monitoring increasingly sophisticated and powerful private markets, regulators purposefully designed initiatives that were not meant to succeed, that is, they “self-captured” their own activity. By formulating initiatives that were inherently flawed, regulators saved their public role and at the same time paved the way for the privatization of hedge fund regulation. This explanation identifies a link between the failure of public initiatives and the success of private ones. It illustrates a specific case of formation of private authority in financial markets that points to a more general practice emerging in the regulation of finance.

The Electoral Determinants of Collective Remittances: The Mexican 3x1 Program for Migrants

The 3x1 Program for Migrants is a matching grant scheme that seeks to direct the money sent by migrant organizations abroad to the provision of public and social infrastructure, and to productive projects in migrants’ communities of origin. To do so, the municipal, state, and federal administrations match the amount sent by hometown associations by 3 to 1. This opens the door to the political manipulation of the program. We explore the impact of a particular facet of Mexican political life on the operation of the 3x1: its recent democratization and the increasing political competition at the municipal level. Relying on the literature on redistributive politics, we posit that an increasing number of effective parties in elections may have two different effects. On the one hand, the need to cater to more heterogeneous constituencies may increase the provision of public projects. On the other hand, since smaller coalitions are needed to win elections under tighter competition, fewer public and more private (clientelistic) projects could be awarded. Using a unique dataset on the 3x1 Program for Migrants for over 2,400 municipalities in the period 2002 through 2007, we find a lower provision of public goods in electorally competitive jurisdictions. Thus, we remain sceptical about the program success in promoting public goods in politically competitive locations with high migration levels.

Pre-jubilacions i progrés: un absurd del nostre temps?

El sentit comú ens diu que si una persona que està treballant, és a dir, produint, deixa de fer-ho en ser pre-jubilada, posem als 52 anys, la societat a la que pertany disminueix el seu potencial productiu. No obstant això les pre-jubilacions es defensen normalment com una necessitat per a que l’empresa sigui més competitiva i així el país sigui més competitiu. L’absurd a que es refereix el títol pot resumir-se així: ‘reduir el potencial productiu del país per a fer el país més competitiu’. Com d’altres absurds similars, te, clar, la seva ‘explicació’ social-política. I de fet els economistes tendim a mirar amb certa condescendència als qui verbalitzen un absurd d’aquests tipus, perquè deduïm que qui ho fa no és capaç d’adonar-se’n que aquestes qüestions econòmiques no són tan senzilles. O, en el fons si que ho són?