Climate Change and Development in Latin America and the Caribbean. Overview 2009

Includes bibliography

Situación y perspectivas de la eficiencia energética en América Latina y el Caribe = Situation and perspectives on energy efficiency in Latin America and the Caribbean

Incluye Bibliografía

Trade, poverty and complementary policies in Latin America

Includes bibliography

Observatory of customs controls for United States imports: technical standards

Includes bibliography

Technological change and structuralist analysis

Includes bibliography

Structural change and productivity growth 20 years later: old problems, new opportunities. Summary

Includes bibliography

Belize: effects of climate change on agriculture

Incluye Bibliografía

Climate change: selected economic dimensions

Includes bibliography

Renewable energy sources in Latin America and the Caribbean: situation and policy proposals

Includes bibliography

Latin America’s emergence in global services A new driver of structural change in the region?

Includes bibliography.

Energy efficiency in Latin America and the Caribbean: Progress and challenges of the past five years. Executive summary

The present document analyses the progress of national programmes and activities associated with the promotion and development of energy efficiency between the years 2008 and 2013 in the 27 Latin American and the Caribbean member countries of the Latin American Energy Organization (OLADE). The new study is based on the original report —prepared by ECLAC and OLADE between July 2008 and July 20091— taking into consideration any progress made over the past four to five years, an interval long enough to justify an update both of the current status of energy efficiency and its prospects, developments and challenges in the Region of Latin America and the Caribbean.

Big data and open data as sustainability tools: A working paper prepared by the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean

The two main forces affecting economic development are the ongoing technological revolution and the challenge of sustainability. Technological change is altering patterns of production, consumption and behaviour in societies; at the same time, it is becoming increasingly difficult to ensure the sustainability of these new patterns because of the constraints resulting from the negative externalities generated by economic growth and, in many cases, by technical progress itself. Reorienting innovation towards reducing or, if possible, reversing the effects of these externalities could create the conditions for synergies between the two processes. Views on the subject vary widely: while some maintain that these synergies can easily be created if growth follows an environmentally friendly model, summarized in the concept of green growth, others argue that production and consumption patterns are changing too slowly and that any technological fix will come too late. These considerations apply to hard technologies, essentially those used in production. The present document explores the opportunities being opened up by new ones, basically information and communication technologies, in terms of increasing the effectiveness (outcomes) and efficiency (relative costs) of soft technologies that can improve the way environmental issues are handled in business management and in public policy formulation and implementation.

Patterns of technical progress in the Brazilian economy, 1952-2008

This article analyses the pattern of technical change in the Brazilian economy between 1952 and 2008. A Marx-biased pattern of labour-saving and capital-using change predominated in the period under study. Three phases in the dynamism of technical change can be distinguished, however. The first, from 1952 to 1973, was highly dynamic. In the second, from 1973 to 1991, this dynamism lessened. Lastly, between 1991 and 2008, the dynamism of technical change recovered slightly. The wage share held fairly steady throughout the period. The rate of profit dropped between 1952 and 1991 before rising slightly from 1991 to 2008. The net capital accumulation rate contracted after 1975 because of the decline in the rates of profit and investment. Between 2004 and 2008, the net capital accumulation rate increased.

Review of the economics of climate change (RECC) in the Caribbean project: Phase I climate change profiles in select Caribbean countries

These reports are the result of consultations which were conducted in 2008 in Aruba, Barbados, Netherlands Antilles, Dominican Republic, Guyana, Jamaica, Montserrat, Saint Lucia and Trinidad and Tobago. The objective was to obtain relevant information that would inform a Stern-type report where the economics of climate change would be examined for the Caribbean subregion. These reports will be complimented by future assessments of the costs of the “business as usual”, adaptation and mitigation responses to the potential impacts of climate change. It is anticipated that the information contained in each country report would provide a detailed account of the environmental profile and would, therefore, provide an easy point of reference for policymakers in adapting existing policy or in formulating new ones. ECLAC continues to be available to the CDCC countries to provide technical support in the area of sustainable development.