Economies of difficult viability: an option to be examined

Includes bibliography

The basic needs strategy as an option: its possibilities in the Latin American context

Includes bibliography

Interesting proposals of the AMP Working Party on a new pricing system

Informa acerca de las conclusiones y propuestas del Grupo de Trabajo encargado de revisar el protocolo de comercializacion agricola (AMP)

Montserrat port pricing analysis

Includes bibliography

Alternatives for controlling urban traffic congestion

Traffic congestion is nothing new in Latin American cities but has worsened in recent years. Eliminating it is a pipedream, but it should be brought under control. Many economists and transport planners think electronic road pricing would be the best way of tackling it, now that the appropriate technology for implementing it is available. On the other hand, experience shows that, for political reasons, it would be better to begin by adopting simpler methods. To start with, simple road pricing would seem to be the best option. But, over 20 years of experience in London and more than six in Santiago, Chile, made it clear that socio-political barriers have to be surmounted before even this option can be applied in practice. There is more political support for measures to control parking, due in part to the fact that the legal powers do not normally extend to restricting the number of parking spaces available to high-income and influential motorists who have the right to park near their offices and who cause a great deal of the congestion whilst getting there. In Latin America, the relative importance of taxis also diminishes the effectiveness of measures geared to parking, since taxis contribute to congestion although but they do not park. The problem of congestion cannot be solved by using tame measures. The time has come for something bolder, i.e., measures that, at the very least, exercise control over those parking spaces, which so far have been beyond the reach of governments and local authorities, ideally, simple road pricing systems would be even more effective.

The Geography of Brazilian External Trade: Right Option for a BRIC?

Words can make a difference sometimes.Brazil is – together with the other ´BRIC´- a large economy, with an increasingly high profile in the international scenario. Large domestic market makes it more likely to obtain ‘growth-led exports’ rather than ‘export-led growth’, which implies a pro-active role in international relations. The option for intensifying regional trade links is a reasonable one and perhaps even inevitable, taking into account the experience elsewhere, but the actual regional conditions raise a number of questions that have to do both with further empirical assessment and to more specific identification of expectations with regard to probable achievements. This article has shown that the road to reach significant progress in this direction is not flat and requires more clear signalling to economic agents, strong political will and a good deal of specific measures. But it has also suggested that it might provide positive results.

Pricing and spread components at the Lima Stock Exchange

This paper analyses three aspects of the share market operated by the Lima Stock Exchange: (i) the short-term relationship between the pricing, direction and volume of order flows; (ii) the components of the spread and the equilibrium point of the limit order book per share, and (iii) the pricing, order direction and trading volume dynamic resulting from shocks in the same variables when lagged. The econometric results for intraday data from 2012 show that the short-run dynamic of the most and least liquid shares in the General Index of the Lima Stock Exchange is explained by the direction of order flow, whose price impact is temporary in both cases.