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This paper aims to analyze the relationship between agricultural methane and nitrous oxide emissions as a function of per capita gross domestic product (GDP) and its quadratic term in 26 Latin American and Caribbean countries (1990-2019). It also considers the stock of foreign investment to test the polluting paradise hypothesis, agricultural land (AL), and, additionally, methane for nitrous function. The study comprised unit root and cointegration tests. Coefficients were estimated by using fully modified least squares (FMOLS), correlated common effects (CCE), and augmented mean group (AMG). Results by FMOLS show statistical evidence of an environmental Kuznets curve in the set of countries for methane and support the polluting paradise hypothesis. However, results from CCE and AMG show the opposite. For nitrous oxide, FMOLS confirms a U-shaped curve. The above supports a joint environmental policy for both gases, where AL is a key element. The previous results must be corroborated with other methods and the studies extended to other countries over time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper shows that the liberalization processes and the expansion of the financial sector have changed profoundly the economic, social, and political life of the world economy. New phenomena have arisen, such as the supremacy of the monetary authorities over the fiscal ones and the transformation of national governments into creditors of the central banks. These changes have generated negative consequences, like financial instability, an increase in the number of crises, low growth, and distributive inequality. The article clarifies the need to modify relevant aspects of economic policy. It argues that attributing the role of leaders to the monetary authorities in the coordination of economic policies harms growth and distributive equity. The work claims that discretion should be returned to fiscal policy and that public intervention should guide the evolution of the productive structure. To restore discretion to fiscal policy, the quality of public policies and the levels of trust between the different institutions of national economic policy and between financial market operators and government authorities must be improved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

New Economic Geography (NEG) focuses on the question of whether trade leads to a greater concentration of economic activity. Little empirical work has been done on assessing the regional distribution of the impact of trade. Therefore, this paper looks at the regional distribution in Mexico of the benefits from trade after NAFTA. Unlike previous papers, this study works with municipal-level data, which not only makes it possible to observe the growth patterns across space more clearly but also to identify the effect of NAFTA. The results show that after NAFTA, output per worker in regions near the Mexico-U.S. border grew faster than that in those further away. Furthermore, the trade agreement increased inequality, implying trade increased economic concentration by causing cities to grow faster than other regions. Similarly, regions with a more literate workforce were better able to benefit from NAFTA, growing faster than other areas after the trade agreement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Adopting a legal definition of informality, this paper studies the causes of informality in general and with a particular application to Mexico. It starts with a discussion on the definition and measures of informality. It then argues and provides evidence that informality is not only a reflection of underdevelopment but may also be the source of further economic retardation. Next, the paper analyzes informality's main determinants, arguing that informality is not single-caused but results from the combination of poor public services, a burdensome regulatory regime, and weak monitoring and enforcement capacity by the state. This combination is especially explosive when the country suffers from low educational achievement and features demographic pressures and primary production structures. The paper then evaluates the empirical relevance of each determinant of informality to the specific case of Mexico. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses the growth slowdown of the Mexican economy during the reform and post reform periods. It addresses four possible factors behind the growth deceleration. First, the role of international trade integration, showing that the trade policy reforms of the 1980s and 1990s were in fact very successful in enhancing export growth and trade openness but not in promoting a dynamic pattern of trade specialization. Second, the productivity growth slowdown, arguing that this should be seen as a consequence rather than a cause of the growth deceleration as the evolution of productivity growth is closely associated with the expansion of tertiary underemployment. Third, the discussion of the role of human capital formation suggests that educational and health indicators have been improving during the recent period, partly as a consequence of the demographic bonus, and cannot be held responsible for the fall in output per worker that has taken place since the early 1980s. Finally, the paper focuses on what it believes is the primary determinant of the growth slowdown, the low rate of physical capital accumulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Latin America has been dominated by growth expansions that, more often than not, have ended in crises and protracted periods of stagnation. This has led to poor growth performance during most of the past century. This paper reviews Latin American growth experiences and discusses some particular areas that help to explain why sustainable growth has been so elusive in the region. In particular, it discusses the role of openness and intraregional trade, the role of institutions, macroeconomic stability and inequality, all factors that are central to resume and maintain growth. The paper also discusses more general issues related to growth, such as the importance of protecting property rights and having an adequate structure of rewards to effort, which includes equal opportunities. Finally, a brief overview on current macroeconomic developments is presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we analyze the changes in the Chilean economy specialization patterns mainly in the period of fastest economic growth and taking into account its relative abundance of productive factors. There are three important findings in this paper that are relevant for natural resources abundant, fast-growing economies. First, we find that even there is a great degree of heterogeneity in output and productivity growth across economic activities, the most dynamic sectors are those more intensive in natural resources. In contrast, labor-intensive sectors are more likely to experience economic contractions. Second, consistent with international evidence, our results suggest that significant changes in Chilean specialization patterns are possible only if the economy increases substantially the investment in both physical and human capital. Third, we do not find evidence that necessarily the tradable sector is an engine of growth. In fact, for a large part of the period under analysis, the non-tradable sector had experienced more rapid output and productivity growth than the tradable sector. This would be consistent with a number of structural reforms (privatization and liberalization of foreign direct investment) that favored expansion in non tradable sectors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: This paper examines the relationship between energy use (ENU) and gross capital formation (GCF) with the gross domestic product (GDP) growth rate in 73 countries. Countries are grouped according to the World Bank classification on income: high (30 countries), medium high (21 countries) and medium low (22 countries). Countries with a low income level are excluded due to insufficient data. The reason why the GCF is included is to study how it influences jointly with the ENU in the GDP growth since the GCF considers machinery and capital goods that require energy. Methods: Unit root and cointegration tests of panel data are performed, as well as estimates of fully modified ordinary least squares and dynamic ordinary least squares of data panel. Results: The empirical findings are that GDP growth is explained by ENU and GCF in the short and long run, except for the medium-high income group in which in the short run the ENU is not significant while the GCF is. Also, in all groups, in the long run, the GCF is explained by both GDP growth and ENU. It is highlighted that in all groups, in the short run, there is no causal relationship between ENU and GCF. Surprisingly, economies with high and low income have similar results. Finally, economic growth has an unidirectional relationship toward UEN and BCF, while in the long run there is no relation. In contrast, for non-oil-producing countries, in the short and long term, GDP growth has an bidirectional relationship with GCF. However, in the short run only the ENU is explained by economic growth. Conclusions: The various short and long-term relationships between ENU, GCF and economic growth that were empirically obtained provide substantial elements to energy policy designers of 73 countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Following Kaldor (1978) and Thirlwall (1979), McCombie (1985) advanced a foreign trade super-multiplier that positively influences other components of aggregate demand of a Balance-of-Payments constrained economy. In this paper, it is shown that net capital stock also exerts a super-multiplier effect, which, contrary to the exports multiplier, happens to be independent from the income elasticity of the demand for imports. Methods: A theoretical model is here presented where given the exports and net capital stock levels, the income level is adjusted to get trade balance equilibrium. We carried out econometric estimations using a fixed effect model and unbalanced panel data to compute the elasticities of both GDP and production for the do-mestic market vis-à-vis exports and the net capital stock. Our estimations are based on data from six Latin American countries for the period 1951-2015 and the sub-periods prior and after economic liberalization. Results: The elasticities of both GDP and production for the domestic market vis-àvis the net capital stock proved to be higher than the said elasticities with respect to exports. Conclusions: Capital accumulation can positively affect the trade balance through economic capacity building and import substitution. Capital accumulation imparts a super-multiplier effect; as Hicks (1950) had pointed out, it makes space for aggregate demand to increase regardless the value of the income elasticity of the demand for imports. McCombie's foreign trade super-multiplier is valid if and only if the income elasticity of total absorption of goods and services is lower than one. Yet, if such elasticity happens to be higher than one, an increase in exports will call for a reduction of the aggregate demand components other than exports so as to preserve the Balance of Payments dynamic equilibrium. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is aimed at developing a stochastic macroeconomic model useful to explain the effects of unexpected jumps in government spending per capita and in demographic variables on per capita economic growth. To do this, it is assumed that the stochastic dynamics of output and population are driven by mixed diffusion- jumps processes modulated by a Markov Chain. The most important results are that extreme sudden jumps in government spending per capita and in the population growth rate impact negatively the rate of per capita output growth. In particular, if there is a sudden sharp jump in the rate of population growth, then capital per capita suddenly decreases impacting negatively per capita output. Finally, the theoretical findings are supplemented with empirical evidence about the Mexican case obtained through a model that takes in account the volatility of the growth rates of the population and the per capita public expense as well as the surprises in the jump intensities of both variables. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes the relationship between foreign direct investment (FDI), economic growth and income inequality in Latin America. Using a data panel of 18 economies for the period 1980-2009, we estimate two equations that represent the relationship between FDI and economic growth, and income inequality, respectively. The main results obtained confirm the positive effects of FDI on economic growth, and show nonlinear significant effects on income inequality: while FDI leads to an increase in inequality, above some level of FDI (in% of GDP) it leads to greater equity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper shows that the evolution of the level of Mexico real and real per capita output between 1895 and 2008 can be adequately described through a trend stationary model, affected by 4 structural breaks, which ocurred at dates that seem to coincide with domestic institutional arrangements, wars, and financial and economic crises. These changes are modeled through logistic smooth transition functions, in which transition periods are endogenously estimated. In terms of growth rates, our results indicate that for Mexico real and real per capita GDP, there are four stationary growth paths, separated by three transition periods. For instance, for real GDP we identify the following stationary growth paths: 1895-1924, 1935- 1952, 1956-1978, and 1989-2008, separated by three transition periods: 1925-1934, 1953-1955, and 1979-1988. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a procedure for estimating potential output and the total factor productivity (TFP), to be applied to Peruvian economy. On the basis of potential output series the economic cycle is then calculated to demonstrate that the output gap includes the TFP gap and the unemployment gap (natural rate and actual rate on unemployment). Moreover, it contrasts the sources of growth and productivity behavior during the import substitution era and the period of neoliberal policies. On the other hand, it shows that productivity changes are associated to the evolution of capital labor ratio and efficiency of investment. The empirical evidence indicates that, in the last decades, there weren't modernization processes with significant impacts on the Peruvian economy as a whole. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social programs can reduce productivity and growth as they inadvertently generate perverse incentives for workers and firms. The core hypothesis is that these programs segment the labor market, tax formal salaried employment and subsidize informal salaried and non-salaried employment. Larger than optimal self-employment and employment by informal firms lowers aggregate labor productivity. In turn, differences in the cost of labor produce differences in returns to capital across films, some formal legally hiring salaried workers and some informal illegally hiring salaried workers. Given the cost of credit, higher labor costs for formal firms distort the allocation of investment in favor of the informal sector; this investment is distributed in many small firms that may fail to exploit advantages of size as a result of firms' strategies to evade social security contributions. This lowers the average productivity of capital causing dynamic productivity losses. The analytical argument is linked to empirical evidence indicating that differences in labor anti capital productivity between sectors and firms contribute to explain differences in productivity growth across countries, on one hand; and to evidence suggesting a negative association between productivity and informality, on the other. A subsidiary hypothesis is that social programs are partly financed by reducing public investment rather than raising taxes, limiting the expansion of growth-promoting public infrastructure. The paper suggests that social programs that lower total factor productivity together with the effects of lower public investment partly account for Mexico's lackluster growth and productivity performance in the context of intensified international competition and the erosion of the advantages of the North American Free Trade Agreement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Input-Output model assumes that as economic systems develops, the technical coefficient matrix changes following either of two tendencies; one, the entries of the matrix shrink due to increased efficiency on the production lines; two, they expand, while productivity gains concentrate in the use of factors (nonproduced inputs). Further, the economic structure grows more complex as industries become more tightly (vertically) integrated and the development process evolves. Both phenomena have seldom been analysed together despite the apparent connections those may have with the evolution of economic structures and the development opportunities countries may face. This paper intend to examine the implications of these tendencies on the evolution of the economic systems in regards to the dynamics the growth process may adopt. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

If finance is crucial to growth, as a large literature has demonstrated, then why is there wide variance in financial development across countries? Why have governments not put the appropriate policies into place to encourage the development of banks and securities markets? This paper addresses this question by exploring the development of the Mexican banking system from the 1880s to the present. It argues that the institutions that encourage financial development cannot be created at the stroke of a pen. Rather, the creation of institutions that encourage financial development are dependent upon other institutions that limit the authority and discretion of the government. In short, political institutions that constrain government are a necessary condition for economic growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]