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Governments shape social problems, discourses and the solutions to solve them. In this context, the main goal of this paper is the comparative analysis of childcare policies in the following countries: Chile, Costa Rica, Uruguay, and Mexico. In order to contribute to the debate about childcare in Latin America, in the light of the frame critical analysis, the problem that each policy solves is analyzed and compared, as well as its aims and solutions. The study is based on governmental documents such as plans and programs, as well as on academic and social organizations discourses, and the literature about the topic in the Latin American region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper examines the relationship between the performance of Latin American stock markets with their real economies, applying seven econometric models for the cases of Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Mexico. The relationship between stock market yields in these countries and their respective GDPS is examined and compared, applying to the series for each country unit root tests, cointegration analysis, error correction model analysis, Granger causality modeling, self-regression vector analysis, stimulus and response functions, and variance decomposition analysis. The series comprise the following stock markets: Argentina's MERVAL, Brazil's BOVESPA, Chile's IGPA, and Mexico's IPC, as compiled by Economática. The GDP series were obtained from the Cepalstat data base. The series are monthly and are for the period 1993-2005. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]