Latin America in the Rearview Mirror / Harold L. Cole, Lee E. Ohanian, Alvaro Riascos, James A. Schmitz, Jr..

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Cole, Harold L.

Contributor:

National Bureau of Economic Research.

Ohanian, Lee E.

Riascos, Alvaro.

Schmitz, James A, Jr.

Series:

Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w11008.

NBER working paper series no. w11008

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource: illustrations (black and white);

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 2004.

Summary:

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.

Notes:

Print version record

December 2004.