The adjustment strategies of Mexican ejidatarios in the face of neoliberal reform

Includes bibliography

Road safety and public health: the cost of treating and rehabilitating the injured in Chile, Colombia and Peru

This issue of the FAL Bulletin examines the implications of road safety for the health-care system. It focuses on the economic cost of treating and rehabilitating road traffic injury victims and, for the sake of better public policy, proposes policy changes aimed at improving data collection as well as coordination among government agencies.

CEPAL Review no. 114

Aspects of recent developments in the Latin American and Caribbean labour markets / Jürgen Weller .-- The earnings share of total income in Latin America, 1990-2010 / Martín Abeles, Verónica Amarante and Daniel Vega .-- Latin America: Total factor productivity and its components / Jair Andrade Araujo, Débora Gaspar Feitosa and Almir Bittencourt da Silva .-- Financial constraints on economic development: Theory and policy for developing countries / Jennifer Hermann .-- The impact of China’s incursion into the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) on intra-industry trade / Jorge Alberto López A., Óscar Rodil M. and Saúl Valdez G. .-- Work, family and public policy changes in Latin America: Equity, maternalism and co-responsibility / Merike Blofield and Juliana Martínez F. .-- A first approach to the impact of the real exchange rate on industrial sectors in Colombia / Lya Paola Sierra and Karina Manrique L. .-- Global integration, disarticulation and competitiveness in Mexico’s electromechanical sector: A structural analysis / Raúl Vázquez López .-- Technological capacity-building in unstable settings: Manufacturing firms in Argentina and Brazil / Anabel Marín, Lilia Stubrin and María Amelia Gibbons .-- Index of political instability in Brazil, 1889-2009 / Jaime Jordan Costantini and Mauricio Vaz Lobo Bittencourt

Cleaner Production initiatives and challenges for a sustainable world: an introduction to this special volume

This special volume of the Journal of Cleaner Production is comprised of articles presented at the 3rd International Workshop Advances in Cleaner Production held in Sao Paulo, Brazil, in 2011. The content underscores the recognition of the pressing and inescapable need for making changes from unsustainable to sustainable production and consumption patterns. The 48 articles from 15 countries provide different, but complimentary approaches to help industrial and societal sectors in advancing on their paths towards sustainability. Initiatives and challenges are included, which systematically address problems affecting raw material changes, technological modifications, product and policy changes. The findings range from proposals for alternative uses of wastes, substitution of raw materials for environmentally friendlier substances, optimization of industrial processes by source reductions of wastes and emissions and documented economic and environmental advantages of a wide array of initiatives. The roles of operational and managerial practices are also stressed, highlighting the role of diverse stakeholders as promoters of implementation and internalization of innovative cleaner technologies within companies. Systemic assessment tools are employed and experimented with in order to more effectively evaluate the environmental performance of systems on the biosphere scale. The methodological procedures and proposals presented can help in the design and management of production systems, for governmental and corporate policy development, for implementing and monitoring CP Programs, prevention and mitigation strategies, and evaluation of the outcomes of CP initiatives in the production and service sectors. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Bovine Tb Eradication Project – Recognizing Hot Button Issues

The Michigan Departments of Agriculture, Community Health, and Natural Resources, US Department of Agriculture (USDA) and Michigan State University work cooperatively together as the bovine TB eradication project partners. The interagency group combines expertise in epidemiology, veterinary and human medicine, pathology, wildlife biology, animal husbandry, regulatory law and policy and risk communications. The stakeholders, those impacted by the disease, include agriculture and tourism industry representatives, “Mom-and-Pop” businesses, hunters, wildlife enthusiasts, farmers, Local Health Departments and legislators. The regulatory agencies are the above mentioned project partners, excluding MSU and USDA Wildlife Services, both of which offer services to agencies and stakeholders. Eradicating bovine TB would not be difficult if there were no social issues surrounding it. The economy, hunting traditions, animal management, tourism and human health are all impacted by regulatory response to the disease. Often the social issues play a large role in decision making, therefore it is important to understand your clientele and anticipate public reaction to policy changes and requirements.

Essays on European economic and monetary integration

This thesis focuses on two aspects of European economic integration: exchange rate stabilization between non-euro Countries and the Euro Area, and real and nominal convergence of Central and Eastern European Countries. Each Chapter covers these aspects from both a theoretical and empirical perspective. Chapter 1 investigates whether the introduction of the euro was accompanied by a shift in the de facto exchange rate policy of European countries outside the euro area, using methods recently developed by the literature to detect "Fear of Floating" episodes. I find that European Inflation Targeters have tried to stabilize the euro exchange rate, after its introduction; fixed exchange rate arrangements, instead, apart from official policy changes, remained stable. Finally, the euro seems to have gained a relevant role as a reference currency even outside Europe. Chapter 2 proposes an approach to estimate Central Bank preferences starting from the Central Bank's optimization problem within a small open economy, using Sweden as a case study, to find whether stabilization of the exchange rate played a role in the Monetary Policy rule of the Riksbank. The results show that it did not influence interest rate setting; exchange rate stabilization probably occurred as a result of increased economic integration and business cycle convergence. Chapter 3 studies the interactions between wages in the public sector, the traded private sector and the closed sector in ten EU Transition Countries. The theoretical literature on wage spillovers suggests that the traded sector should be the leader in wage setting, with non-traded sectors wages adjusting. We show that large heterogeneity across countries is present, and sheltered and public sector wages are often leaders in wage determination. This result is relevant from a policy perspective since wage spillovers, leading to costs growing faster than productivity, may affect the international cost competitiveness of the traded sector.

Language in Political Economy and Market Economy: A Case Study of India

The political philosophy underpinning the Indian Constitution is socialist economy in a multilingual political landscape. The Constitution grants some fundamental rights to all citizens regarding language and to linguistic and other minorities regarding education. It also obligates states to use many languages in school education. Restructuring the economy with free market as its pivot and the growing dominance of English in the information driven global economy give rise to policy changes in language use in education, which undermine the Constitutional provisions relating to language, though these changes reflect the manufactured consent of the citizens. This is made possible by the way the Constitution is interpreted by courts with regard to the fundamental rights of equality and non-discrimination when they apply to language. The unique property of language that it can be acquired, unlike other primordial attributes such as ethnicity or caste, comes into play in this interpretation. The result is that the law of the market takes over the law of the land.

Source of health insurance and immunization rates: Findings from the 1996 Texas immunization survey

This study was a further investigation of the 1996 Texas Immunization Survey conducted by the Associateship for Disease Control and Prevention of the Texas Department of Health. The 1996 survey was conducted through 4,599 completed telephone interviews of families with a child between the ages of 3–35 months concerning the immunization status of Texas children. The present study determined differences in immunization rates for children aged 3–35 months for the last shot in the immunization series that should be completed before 2 years of age, a total of four shots, both overall and for different health insurance groups. Life tables were used to determine the percentage and distribution over time of completed vaccination rates for each shot. Emphasis was placed on the proportion of children that were immunized at the end of the recommended range of the immunization schedule, and at 2 years of age. Univariate and multivariate analysis was also performed in order to ascertain which risk factors predict whether or not a child will be immunized. RESULTS: Between 80–90% were immunized for the last shot of Hepatitis B; Measles, Mumps, and Rubella; and Polio at 2 years of age. Approximately 2/3 of the sample was immunized for Diphtheria, Pertussis, and Tetanus. Most of the children were immunized by the end of the recommended range of the immunization schedule except for Measles, Mumps, and Rubella. Children of parents with private indemnity insurance were significantly more likely to have received two of the four shots; children of uninsured parents were significantly less likely to have received three of the four shots. In multivariate analysis, maternal education was the only variable that consistently predicted immunization status for the different shots. Results indicate that a substantial gap exists for immunization rates between children with private insurance and uninsured children, despite recent policy changes to provide immunizations free of charge. Health care providers should pay extra attention to the poor and uninsured to make sure that all children receive timely immunizations. ^

Voluntary Participation in Regional Fisheries Management Council Meetings

Insufficient and unrepresentative participation in voluntary public hearings and policy discussions has been problematic since Aristotle's time. In fisheries, research has shown that involvement is dominated by financially resourceful and extreme-opinion stakeholders and tends to advantage groups that have a lower cost of attendance. Stakeholders may exhibit only one or all of these traits but can be still similarly advantaged. The opposites of these traits tend to characterize the disadvantaged, such as the middle-ground opinions, the less wealthy or organized, and the more remote stakeholders. Remoteness or distance is the most straightforward and objective of these characteristics to measure. We analyzed the New England Fishery Management Council's sign-in sheets for 2003-2006, estimating participants' travel distance and associations with the groundfish, scallop, and herring industries. We also evaluated the representativeness of participation by comparing attendance to landings and permit distributions. The distance analysis showed a significant correlation between attendance levels and costs via travel distance. These results suggest a potential bias toward those stakeholders residing closer to meeting locations, possibly disadvantaging parties who are further and must incur higher costs. However, few significant differences were found between the actual fishing industry and attendee distributions, suggesting that the geographical distribution of the meeting attendees is statistically similar to that of the larger fishery. The interpretation of these results must take into consideration the limited time span of the analysis, as policy changes may have altered the industry make-up and location prior to our study. Furthermore, the limited geographical input of stakeholders may lend bias to the Council's perception of ecological and social conditions throughout the spatial range of the fishery. These factors should be further considered in the policy-formation process in order to incorporate a broader range of stakeholder input.

Charity care and community benefits by hospital type in Texas

Hospital care is the largest component of the health care sector. This industry is made up of for profit hospital (FPH) organizations, not for profit (NFP) hospitals, and government (GOV) run hospital facilities. Objectives of this analysis were: (a) to conduct a literature review on NFP hospital legislation at the state level in Texas and at the federal level in the broader U.S.; and (b) to describe the types of charity care and community benefits currently being provided: by NFP hospitals compared to FPH hospitals and GOV hospitals; by hospitals geographic proximity to the Texas-Mexico border; and by hospital community type (rural, suburban, and urban); and (c) propose specific policy changes that may be needed to improve the current Texas State statute. Methods. In describing the historical and current policy context of NFP hospital legislation in the United States, federal legislation was reviewed from 1913 to the present and Texas State legislation was reviewed from 1980 to the present. In describing the provision of charity care, data from the 2008 Annual Cooperative Hospital Survey were examined by hospital organizational type, size, proximity to the border, and community type using linear regression and chi-squared tests to assess differences in charity care and community benefits. Results. The data included 123 NFP hospitals, 114 GOV hospitals, and 123 FPH. Results. Small sized (p<0.001) and medium sized (p<0.001) NFP hospitals provide a greater percent of total charity care when compared to FPH hospitals and to both GOV and FPH hospitals respectively; however, no significant difference in total charity care was found among large sized NFP hospitals when compared to FPH hospitals alone (p=.345) and both GOV and FPH facilities (p=.214). The amount of charity care provided was not found to be different based on proximity to the border or community type. Community benefit planning and budgeting was found to be similar regardless of community type and proximity to the border. Conclusion. No differences in charity care in Texas were found for large sized NFP hospitals compared to FPH and GOV hospitals. Contrary to widely held beliefs, this study did not find the border region to provide a greater amount of charity care or bad debt. Charity care also did not vary by community type. These findings underscore the need for continued collection of transparent data from all hospitals in order to provide policy makers and consumers with information on utilization trends to ensure benefits are being provided to the community. Policy changes or revoking tax-benefits may occur as charity care utilization declines with the implementation of health reform in the next few years.^

Baseline evaluation of environmental physical activity and nutrition support of Texas Medical Center hospital worksites

Background: Obesity is a major health problem in the United States that has reached epidemic proportions. With most U.S adults spending the majority of their waking hours at work, the influence of the workplace environment on obesity is gaining in importance. Recent research implicates worksites as providing an 'obesogenic' environment as they encourage overeating and reduce the opportunity for physical activity. Objective: The aim of this study is to describe the nutrition and physical activity environment of Texas Medical Center (TMC) hospitals participating in the Shape Up Houston evaluation study to develop a scoring system to quantify the environmental data collected using the Environmental Assessment Tool (EAT) survey and to assess the inter-observer reliability of using the EAT survey. Methods: A survey instrument that was adapted from the Environmental Assessment Tool (EAT) developed by Dejoy DM et al in 2008 to measure the hospital environmental support for nutrition and physical activity was used for this study. The inter-observer reliability of using the EAT survey was measured and total percent agreement scores were computed. Most responses on the EAT survey are dichotomous (Yes and No) and these responses were coded with a '0' for a 'no' response and a '1' for a 'yes' response. A summative scoring system was developed to quantify these responses. Each hospital was given a score for each scale and subscale on the EAT survey in addition to a total score. All analyses were conducted using Stata 11 software. Results: High inter-observer reliability is observed using EAT. The percentage agreement scores ranged from 94.4%–100%. Only 2 of the 5 hospitals had a fitness facility onsite and scores for exercise programs and outdoor facilities available for hospital employees ranged from 0–62% and 0–37.5%, respectively. The healthy eating percentage for hospital cafeterias range from 42%–92% across the different hospitals while the healthy vending scores were 0%–40%. The total TMC 'healthy hospital' score was 49%. Conclusion: The EAT survey is a reliable instrument for measuring the physical activity and nutrition support environment of hospital worksites. The study results showed a large variability among the TMC hospitals in the existing physical activity and nutrition support environment. This study proposes cost effective policy changes that can increase environmental support to healthy eating and active living among TMC hospital employees.^

トルコにおける2015年総選挙とエルドアン体制の政策変容

In Turkey, the political system in which Recep Tayyip Erdoğan plays the most important role – the "Erdoğan regime" – has been in place since November 2002. After Erdoğan’s party, the Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, AKP), won the general elections and he became the prime minster, they were successful in maintaining the single-party administration over ten years. Even since becoming the president and devolving the premiership to Ahmet Davutoğlu in August 2014, Erdoğan has been at the center of the Turkish parliamentary system. However, in the Turkish general elections in June 2015, the AKP failed to get a majority of parliamentary seats for the first time, and the Erdoğan regime seemed to be faced with a crisis. The regime was able to regain the single-party administration in the early general elections in November 2015 by carrying out significant political change after their first electoral defeat. In this sense, for Turkey and the Erdoğan regime, the year 2015 was not only the year of the election, but also of political change. This paper analyzes these two general elections in 2015 and the changes of the political tendencies of the Erdoğan regime which have been observed since the general elections in June 2015 in particular. It also focuses on the changes in the strategies and the relationships among Turkish political actors including President Erdoğan, the AKP government, and the other major political parties.

Simulation analysis of the EU ELV/RoHS directives based on an applied general equilibrium model with Melitz-type trade specification

This paper explores the potential usefulness of an AGE model with the Melitz-type trade specification to assess economic effects of technical regulations, taking the case of the EU ELV/RoHS directives as an example. Simulation experiments reveal that: (1) raising the fixed exporting cost to make sales in the EU market brings results that exports of the targeted commodities (motor vehicles and parts for ELV and electronic equipment for RoHS) to the EU from outside regions/countries expand while the domestic trade in the EU shrinks when the importer's preference for variety (PfV) is not strong; (2) if the PfV is not strong, policy changes that may bring reduction in the number of firms enable survived producers with high productivity to expand production to be large-scale mass producers fully enjoying the fruit of economies of scale; and (3) When the strength of the importer's PfV is changed from zero to unity, there is the value that totally changes simulation results and their interpretations.

Implantación de un sistema de seguridad perimetral

Este proyecto está desarrollado sobre la seguridad de redes, y más concretamente en la seguridad perimetral. Para mostrar esto se hará una definición teórico-práctica de un sistema de seguridad perimetral. Para ello se ha desglosado el contenido en dos partes fundamentales, la primera incide en la base teórica relativa a la seguridad perimetral y los elementos más importantes que intervienen en ella, y la segunda parte, que es la implantación de un sistema de seguridad perimetral habitual en un entorno empresarial. En la primera parte se exponen los elementos más importantes de la seguridad perimetral, incidiendo en elementos como pueden ser cortafuegos, IDS/IPS, antivirus, proxies, radius, gestores de ancho de banda, etc. Sobre cada uno de ellos se explica su funcionamiento y posible configuración. La segunda parte y más extensa a la vez que práctica, comprende todo el diseño, implantación y gestión de un sistema de seguridad perimetral típico, es decir, el que sería de aplicación para la mayoría de las empresas actuales. En esta segunda parte se encontrarán primeramente las necesidades del cliente y situación actual en lo que a seguridad se refiere, con los cuales se diseñará la arquitectura de red. Para comenzar será necesario definir formalmente unos requisitos previos, para satisfacer estos requisitos se diseñará el mapa de red con los elementos específicos seleccionados. La elección de estos elementos se hará en base a un estudio de mercado para escoger las mejores soluciones de cada fabricante y que más se adecúen a los requisitos del cliente. Una vez ejecutada la implementación, se diseñará un plan de pruebas, realizando las pruebas de casos de uso de los diferentes elementos de seguridad para asegurar su correcto funcionamiento. El siguiente paso, una vez verificado que todos los elementos funcionan de forma correcta, será diseñar un plan de gestión de la plataforma, en el que se detallan las rutinas a seguir en cada elemento para conseguir que su funcionamiento sea óptimo y eficiente. A continuación se diseña una metodología de gestión, en las que se indican los procedimientos de actuación frente a determinadas incidencias de seguridad, como pueden ser fallos en elementos de red, detección de vulnerabilidades, detección de ataques, cambios en políticas de seguridad, etc. Finalmente se detallarán las conclusiones que se obtienen de la realización del presente proyecto. ABSTRACT. This project is based on network security, specifically on security perimeter. To show this, a theoretical and practical definition of a perimeter security system will be done. This content has been broken down into two main parts. The first part is about the theoretical basis on perimeter security and the most important elements that it involves, and the second part is the implementation of a common perimeter security system in a business environment. The first part presents the most important elements of perimeter security, focusing on elements such as firewalls, IDS / IPS, antivirus, proxies, radius, bandwidth managers, etc... The operation and possible configuration of each one will be explained. The second part is larger and more practical. It includes all the design, implementation and management of a typical perimeter security system which could be applied in most businesses nowadays. The current status as far as security is concerned, and the customer needs will be found in this second part. With this information the network architecture will be designed. In the first place, it would be necessary to define formally a prerequisite. To satisfy these requirements the network map will be designed with the specific elements selected. The selection of these elements will be based on a market research to choose the best solutions for each manufacturer and are most suited to customer requirements. After running the implementation, a test plan will be designed by testing each one of the different uses of all the security elements to ensure the correct operation. In the next phase, once the proper work of all the elements has been verified, a management plan platform will be designed. It will contain the details of the routines to follow in each item to make them work optimally and efficiently. Then, a management methodology will be designed, which provides the procedures for action against certain security issues, such as network elements failures, exploit detection, attack detection, security policy changes, etc.. Finally, the conclusions obtained from the implementation of this project will be detailed.

A multi-scale analysis of transforming agricultural markets in the context of globalization: implications for natural resources, food prices and rural poverty in Latin America

Vivimos una época en la que el mundo se transforma aceleradamente. La globalización está siguiendo un curso imparable, la población mundial así como la población urbana siguen creciendo, y en los países emergentes los ingresos promedios aumentan, resultando en un cambio también acelerado de las dietas y hábitos alimentarios. En conjunto esos factores están causando un aumento fundamental de la demanda de alimentos. Junto con la apertura de los mercados agrícolas, estos procesos han provocado un crecimiento del comercio internacional de alimentos durante la última década. Dado que muchos países de América Latina están dotados de abundancia de recursos naturales, estas tendencias han producido un crecimiento rápido de las exportaciones de bienes primarios desde América Latina al resto del mundo. En sólo 30 años la participación en el mercado agrícola de América Latina casi se ha duplicado, desde 10% en 1980 a 18% en 2010. Este aumento del comercio agrícola ha dado lugar a un debate sobre una serie de cuestiones cruciales relacionadas con los impactos del comercio en la seguridad alimentaria mundial, en el medio ambiente o en la reducción de la pobreza rural en países en desarrollo. Esta tesis aplica un marco integrado para analizar varios impactos relacionados con la transformación de los mercados agrícolas y los mercados rurales debidos a la globalización y, en particular, al progresivo aumento del comercio internacional. En concreto, la tesis aborda los siguientes temas: En primer lugar, la producción mundial de alimentos tendrá que aumentar considerablemente para poder satisfacer la demanda de una población mundial de 9000 millones personas en 2050, lo cual plantea grandes desafíos sobre los sistemas de la producción de alimentos. Alcanzar este logro, sin comprometer la integridad del medio ambiente en regiones exportadoras, es un reto aún mayor. En este contexto, la tesis analiza los efectos de la liberalización del comercio mundial, considerando distintas tecnologías de producción agraria, sobre unos indicadores de seguridad alimentaria en diferentes regiones del mundo y sobre distintos indicadores ambientales, teniendo en cuenta escalas diferentes en América Latina y el Caribe. La tesis utiliza el modelo “International Model for Policy Analysis of Agricultural Commodities and Trade (IMPACT)” – un modelo dinámico de equilibrio parcial del sector agrícola a escala global – para modelar la apertura de los mercados agrícolas así como diferentes escenarios de la producción hasta el año 2050. Los resultados del modelo están vinculados a modelos biofísicos para poder evaluar los cambios en la huella hídrica y la calidad del agua, así como para cuantificar los impactos del cambio en el uso del suelo sobre la biodiversidad y los stocks de carbono en 2050. Los resultados indican que la apertura de los mercados agrícolas es muy importante para mejorar la seguridad alimentaria a nivel mundial, sin embargo, produce también presiones ambientales indeseables en algunas regiones de América Latina. Contrastando dos escenarios que consideran distintas modos de producción, la expansión de la tierra agrícola frente a un escenario de la producción más intensiva, se demuestra que las mejoras de productividad son generalmente superiores a la expansión de las tierras agrícolas, desde un punto de vista económico e ambiental. En cambio, los escenarios de intensificación sostenible no sólo hacen posible una mayor producción de alimentos, sino que también generan menos impactos medioambientales que los otros escenarios futuros en todas sus dimensiones: biodiversidad, carbono, emisiones de nitratos y uso del agua. El análisis muestra que hay un “trade-off” entre el objetivo de alcanzar la sostenibilidad ambiental y el objetivo de la seguridad alimentaria, independiente del manejo agrícola en el futuro. En segundo lugar, a la luz de la reciente crisis de los precios de alimentos en los años 2007/08, la tesis analiza los impactos de la apertura de los mercados agrícolas en la transmisión de precios de los alimentos en seis países de América Latina: Argentina, Brasil, Chile, Colombia, México y el Perú. Para identificar las posibles relaciones de cointegración entre los índices de precios al consumidor de alimentos y los índices de precios de agrarios internacionales, sujetos a diferentes grados de apertura de mercados agrícolas en los seis países de América Latina, se utiliza un modelo simple de corrección de error (single equation error correction). Los resultados indican que la integración global de los mercados agrícolas ha dado lugar a diferentes tasas de transmisión de precios en los países investigados. Sobre todo en el corto plazo, las tasas de transmisión dependen del grado de apertura comercial, mientras que en el largo plazo las tasas de transmisión son elevadas, pero en gran medida independientes del régimen de comercio. Por lo tanto, durante un período de shocks de precios mundiales una mayor apertura del comercio trae consigo más inestabilidad de los precios domésticos a corto plazo y la resultante persistencia en el largo plazo. Sin embargo, estos resultados no verifican necesariamente la utilidad de las políticas comerciales, aplicadas frecuentemente por los gobiernos para amortiguar los shocks de precios. Primero, porque existe un riesgo considerable de volatilidad de los precios debido a cambios bruscos de la oferta nacional si se promueve la autosuficiencia en el país; y segundo, la política de proteccionismo asume el riesgo de excluir el país de participar en las cadenas de suministro de alto valor del sector agrícola, y por lo tanto esa política podría obstaculizar el desarrollo económico. Sin embargo, es indispensable establecer políticas efectivas para reducir la vulnerabilidad de los hogares a los aumentos repentinos de precios de alimentos, lo cual requiere una planificación gubernamental precisa con el presupuesto requerido disponible. En tercer lugar, la globalización afecta a la estructura de una economía y, por medios distintos, la distribución de los ingreso en un país. Perú sirve como ejemplo para investigar más profundamente las cuestiones relacionadas con los cambios en la distribución de los ingresos en zonas rurales. Perú, que es un país que está cada vez más integrado en los mercados mundiales, consiguió importantes descensos en la pobreza extrema en sus zonas rurales, pero a la vez adolece de alta incidencia de pobreza moderada y de desigualdad de los ingresos en zonas rural al menos durante el periodo comprendido entre 2004 y 2012. Esta parte de la tesis tiene como objetivo identificar las fuerzas impulsoras detrás de estas dinámicas en el Perú mediante el uso de un modelo de microsimulación basado en modelos de generación de ingresos aplicado a nivel los hogares rurales. Los resultados indican que la fuerza principal detrás de la reducción de la pobreza ha sido el crecimiento económico general de la economía, debido a las condiciones macroeconómicas favorables durante el periodo de estudio. Estos efectos de crecimiento beneficiaron a casi todos los sectores rurales, y dieron lugar a la disminución de la pobreza rural extrema, especialmente entre los agricultores de papas y de maíz. En parte, estos agricultores probablemente se beneficiaron de la apertura de los mercados agrícolas, que es lo que podría haber provocado un aumento de los precios al productor en tiempos de altos precios mundiales de los alimentos. Sin embargo, los resultados también sugieren que para una gran parte de la población más pobre existían barreras de entrada a la hora de poder participar en el empleo asalariado fuera de la agricultura o en la producción de cultivos de alto valor. Esto podría explicarse por la falta de acceso a unos activos importantes: por ejemplo, el nivel de educación de los pobres era apenas mejor en 2012 que en 2004; y también las dotaciones de tierra y de mano de obra, sobre todo de los productores pobres de maíz y patata, disminuyeron entre 2004 y 2012. Esto lleva a la conclusión de que aún hay margen para aplicar políticas para facilitar el acceso a estos activos, que podría contribuir a la erradicación de la pobreza rural. La tesis concluye que el comercio agrícola puede ser un importante medio para abastecer una población mundial creciente y más rica con una cantidad suficiente de calorías. Para evitar adversos efectos ambientales e impactos negativos para los consumidores y de los productores pobres, el enfoque debe centrarse en las mejoras de la productividad agrícola, teniendo en cuenta los límites ambientales y ser socialmente inclusivo. En este sentido, será indispensable seguir desarrollando soluciones tecnológicas que garanticen prácticas de producción agrícola minimizando el uso de recursos naturales. Además, para los pequeños pobres agricultores será fundamental eliminar las barreras de entrada a los mercados de exportación que podría tener efectos indirectos favorables a través de la adopción de nuevas tecnologías alcanzables a través de mercados internacionales. ABSTRACT The world is in a state of rapid transition. Ongoing globalization, population growth, rising living standards and increasing urbanization, accompanied by changing dietary patterns throughout the world, are increasing the demand for food. Together with more open trade regimes, this has triggered growing international agricultural trade during the last decade. For many Latin American countries, which are gifted with relative natural resource abundance, these trends have fueled rapid export growth of primary goods. In just 30 years, the Latin American agricultural market share has almost doubled from 10% in 1980 to 18% in 2010. These market developments have given rise to a debate around a number of crucial issues related to the role of agricultural trade for global food security, for the environment or for poverty reduction in developing countries. This thesis uses an integrated framework to analyze a broad array of possible impacts related to transforming agricultural and rural markets in light of globalization, and in particular of increasing trade activity. Specifically, the following issues are approached: First, global food production will have to rise substantially by the year 2050 to meet effective demand of a nine billion people world population which poses major challenges to food production systems. Doing so without compromising environmental integrity in exporting regions is an even greater challenge. In this context, the thesis explores the effects of future global trade liberalization on food security indicators in different world regions and on a variety of environmental indicators at different scales in Latin America and the Caribbean, in due consideration of different future agricultural production practices. The International Model for Policy Analysis of Agricultural Commodities and Trade (IMPACT) –a global dynamic partial equilibrium model of the agricultural sector developed by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI)– is applied to run different future production scenarios, and agricultural trade regimes out to 2050. Model results are linked to biophysical models, used to assess changes in water footprints and water quality, as well as impacts on biodiversity and carbon stocks from land use change by 2050. Results indicate that further trade liberalization is crucial for improving food security globally, but that it would also lead to more environmental pressures in some regions across Latin America. Contrasting land expansion versus more intensified agriculture shows that productivity improvements are generally superior to agricultural land expansion, from an economic and environmental point of view. Most promising for achieving food security and environmental goals, in equal measure, is the sustainable intensification scenario. However, the analysis shows that there are trade-offs between environmental and food security goals for all agricultural development paths. Second, in light of the recent food price crisis of 2007/08, the thesis looks at the impacts of increasing agricultural market integration on food price transmission from global to domestic markets in six Latin American countries, namely Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Peru. To identify possible cointegrating relationships between the domestic food consumer price indices and world food price levels, subject to different degrees of agricultural market integration in the six Latin American countries, a single equation error correction model is used. Results suggest that global agricultural market integration has led to different levels of price path-through in the studied countries. Especially in the short-run, transmission rates depend on the degree of trade openness, while in the long-run transmission rates are high, but largely independent of the country-specific trade regime. Hence, under world price shocks more trade openness brings with it more price instability in the short-term and the resulting persistence in the long-term. However, these findings do not necessarily verify the usefulness of trade policies, often applied by governments to buffer such price shocks. First, because there is a considerable risk of price volatility due to domestic supply shocks if self-sufficiency is promoted. Second, protectionism bears the risk of excluding a country from participating in beneficial high-value agricultural supply chains, thereby hampering economic development. Nevertheless, to reduce households’ vulnerability to sudden and large increases of food prices, effective policies to buffer food price shocks should be put in place, but must be carefully planned with the required budget readily available. Third, globalization affects the structure of an economy and, by different means, the distribution of income in a country. Peru serves as an example to dive deeper into questions related to changes in the income distribution in rural areas. Peru, a country being increasingly integrated into global food markets, experienced large drops in extreme rural poverty, but persistently high rates of moderate rural poverty and rural income inequality between 2004 and 2012. The thesis aims at disentangling the driving forces behind these dynamics by using a microsimulation model based on rural household income generation models. Results provide evidence that the main force behind poverty reduction was overall economic growth of the economy due to generally favorable macroeconomic market conditions. These growth effects benefited almost all rural sectors, and led to declines in extreme rural poverty, especially among potato and maize farmers. In part, these farmers probably benefited from policy changes towards more open trade regimes and the resulting higher producer prices in times of elevated global food price levels. However, the results also suggest that entry barriers existed for the poorer part of the population to participate in well-paid wage-employment outside of agriculture or in high-value crop production. This could be explained by a lack of sufficient access to important rural assets. For example, poor people’s educational attainment was hardly better in 2012 than in 2004. Also land and labor endowments, especially of (poor) maize and potato growers, rather decreased than increased over time. This leads to the conclusion that there is still scope for policy action to facilitate access to these assets, which could contribute to the eradication of rural poverty. The thesis concludes that agricultural trade can be one important means to provide a growing and richer world population with sufficient amounts of calories. To avoid adverse environmental effects and negative impacts for poor food consumers and producers, the focus should lie on agricultural productivity improvements, considering environmental limits and be socially inclusive. In this sense, it will be crucial to further develop technological solutions that guarantee resource-sparing agricultural production practices, and to remove entry barriers for small poor farmers to export markets which might allow for technological spill-over effects from high-value global agricultural supply chains.