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There are many parallels between the development of Latin America and Sub-Saharan Africa. Recent literature on this is reviewed. It is argued in the paper that the key to long-term development is the shift from inward (import substitution) to outward (export-oriented) growth. This shift involves both tariff reduction and significant investment in infrastructure and human capital accumulation. Given that much of Latin America (historically) and Sub-Saharan Africa (currently) has depended or depends on trade taxes for revenue, an outward orientation poses a significant fiscal problem, which makes it extremely difficult to switch to an export-oriented growth path. East Asian experience points to the importance of broad-based agricultural growth in making the fiscal transition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The existing literature on spatial interdependence in FDI flows has primarily focused on developed economies as hosts, with these hosts economically tied together via good infrastructure and historically strong/significant trade flows. In contrast, we explicitly test for the presence of spatial interdependence in developing hosts (Africa, Latin American and the Caribbean) where such ties are not as strong. For US outbound FDI between 1995 and 2007, our empirical results confirm third-country effects do matter even when controlling for spatial and time-period fixed effects. Based on the signs of the market potential and spatial lag coefficients, we find US FDI strategies into these regions as consistent with complex vertical specialisation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article introduces a series of articles about poverty, development and budget systems.