Income inequality and credit markets

Includes bibliography

Overcoming the empty box syndrome": eterminants of income distribution in Latin America"

Includes bibliography

Production structure of the services sector in countries at different development levels

Includes bibliography

An analysis of maritime transport and its costs for the Caribbean

Includes bibliography

Istmo Centroamericano: la regulación de la distribución de energía eléctrica en los países con empresas privadas. Los casos de El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua y Panamá

Incluye Bibliografía

Income poverty and unsatisfied basic needs

Incluye Bibliografía

A regional basic income: towards the eradication of extreme poverty in Central America

Incluye Bibliografía

An assessment of fiscal and regulatory barriers to deployment of energy efficiency and renewable energy technologies in Guyana

Includes bibliography.

Latin America and the middle-income trap

Includes bibliography.

Income inequality in Latin America. Recent decline and prospects for its further reduction

Incluye bibliografía.

Income inequality in Brazil: What has changed in recent years?

Includes bibliography.

The earnings share of total income in Latin America, 1990-2010

This article analyses the share of total income represented by employment earnings in the countries of Latin America over the last two decades. It first considers the wage share of gross domestic product (gdp) and then adds in the earnings of self-employed workers. The findings indicate that both total wages and total earnings declined as a share of gdp in most of the region’s countries over the period, although there were some exceptions. The reduction in earnings inequality seen over the past decade was not usually accompanied by an increase in the gdp share of earnings. This means that the improvement in personal income distribution was not matched by an improvement in functional distribution.

Productivity, social expenditure and income distribution in Latin America

This paper discusses the role of institutions and structural change in shaping income inequality. It is argued that while social expenditure and direct redistribution are crucial for improving income distribution, sustainable equality requires structural change to create decent jobs. The relative importance of these variables in different countries is analyzed and a typology suggested. It is argued that the most equal countries in the world combine strong institutions in favor of redistribution and knowledge-intensive production structures that sustain growth and employment in the long run. Both institutions and the production structure in Latin America fail to foster equality and this explains its extremely high levels of inequality. The last decade witnessed significant advances in reducing inequality in Latin America, but these advances are threatened by slow productivity growth and weak structural change.

Innovation and internationalization of Latin American services

Innovation and internationalization in services are key drivers of structural transformation, productivity growth and overall economic performance in Latin America. The services sector accounts for two thirds of the region’s GDP and provides over 60% of its employment. These shares are higher than in other developing regions, but still lower than in countries with higher levels of per capita income. The spread of information and communication technologies in Latin America over the past three decades has vastly enhanced both the tradability of services and the sector’s propensity to innovate. Long considered unrelated processes, both internationalization and innovation are today widely recognized as key and complementary sources of firm-level competitiveness and human capital enhancement. The advent of many novel types of business and consumer services is furthermore a key factor in the rising insertion of Latin American firms in regional and global value chains and transnational production networks, which are now the predominant form of organization of international production and trade. This volume explores three different levels of interaction between internationalization and innovation in the services sector in Latin America. Part I analyses the role of services in manufacturing and other sectors’ global value chains from a theoretical perspective, drawing on the experiences of Brazil and Mexico. Part II reviews innovation and internationalization policies and their effects on the performance of the services sector. Part III presents a series of case studies on innovation and internationalization linkages in Brazil, Chile, Costa Rica and Mexico. The book concludes that, in order for Latin American countries and firms to upgrade into services value chains, public and private initiatives must generate a host of regional public goods —enhanced investment climates, supply of skills, greater access to finance, improved protection of intellectual property, better value appropriation, enhanced efforts at standardization and quality certification— to strengthen the links between innovation and internationalization.