Latin America in the Rearview Mirror
61 Pages Posted: 28 Dec 2004 Last revised: 30 Jan 2022
Date Written: December 2004
Abstract
Latin American countries are the only Western countries that are poor and that aren't gaining ground on the United States. This paper evaluates why Latin America has not replicated Western economic success. We find that this failure is primarily due to TFP differences. Latin America's TFP gap is not plausibly accounted for by human capital differences, but rather reflects inefficient production. We argue that competitive barriers are a promising channel for understanding low Latin TFP. We document that Latin America has many more international and domestic competitive barriers than do Western and successful East Asian countries. We also document a number of microeconomic cases in Latin America in which large reductions in competitive barriers increase productivity to Western levels.
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation
Do you have negative results from your research you’d like to share?
Recommended Papers
-
Brazil's Long-Term Growth Performance - Trying to Explain the Puzzle
By Ricardo Adrogue, Martin D. Cerisola, ...
-
Special-Interest Groups and Growth
By Dennis Coates, Jac C. Heckelman, ...
-
Special-Interest Groups and Volatility
By Dennis Coates, Jac C. Heckelman, ...
-
Interest Group Activity and Long-Run Stock Market Performance
By Dennis Coates and Bonnie Wilson
-
Sustaining Latin America's Resurgence: Some Historical Perspectives
By Martin D. Cerisola and Anoop Singh
-
Public Pensions and Capital Accumulation: The Case of Brazil
By Gerhard Glomm, Juergen Jung, ...