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El propósito de este trabajo es identificar las variables que determinan la productividad laboral en El Salvador. Los resultados indican que la extrema apertura de su economía, así como la caída de su tasa de inversión desde mediados de los años noventa, han constituido frenos al dinamismo de la productividad laboral, lo que también se observa en los otros países centroamericanos. Se ha encontrado además que la productividad de un país recibe influencias positivas del dinamismo del empleo de calidad y de la inversión en los países vecinos. Este trabajo concluye indicando la conveniencia de restituir la protección a los sectores productivos de la subregión y de promover la calidad de la educación, la tecnología y la adquisición de conocimientos y destrezas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses the relationship between regional integration and industrialization in Latin America over the past seventy years. To this end, it shows how ECLAC's structuralist thought and integrationist dynamics have influenced each other in practice. It outlines the positions on regional industrialization found in old regionalism, open regionalism and in 21st century regionalisms, and how such positions were shaped by conflicts between social groups. Specifically, it introduces the Andean Pact, MERCOSUR and ALBA as examples. This paper's contribution consists in reflecting critically on Latin American experiences of drafting and implementing common industrial policy in diverse contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the concept of subsidiarity which deals with the allocation and exercise of political and legal authority in multilevel governance schemes, and it mentions a rebuttable presumption legal principle, as well as decision making in political organizations and regional economic integration regimes in places such as Latin America and Africa. The Southern Common Market (Mercosur), East African Community, and the Economic Community of West African States organizations are examined.

The article discusses Latin American history focusing on the economic integration of Latin American countries and deals with the aspects of nature comparing the nations to the Garden of Eden. Topics include role of United Nation's Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), Cuban politics under the leadership of Fidel Castro, and Latin American identity. Lack of trust in several political institutions has been noted.

This paper describes the changes in ownership and internationalization of the brokerage firms in Colombia as a result of the regional integration process of its stock exchange market through the Latin American Integrated Market (MILA). It proposes that the integration of stock exchanges generated transformations within the brokerage sector, and affected companies in response pursue different strategies to remain competitive in the current state of affairs. In the case of Colombia, stock exchange integration through MILA has resulted into mergers between local brokerage firms, acquisitions from both national and international companies and changes in ownership. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aims to determine the impact of the Latin American Integrated Market (MILA) start-up in the main indicators of the stock markets of the countries that conform it (Chile, Colombia, and Peru). At the end, several indicators were reviewed to measure the impact on profitability, risk, correlation, and trading volume between markets, using indicators such as: annual profitability, standard deviation, correlation coefficient, and trading volume. The sample period runs from November 2008 to August 2013; and involves the three stock markets associated with MILA: Bolsa de Comercio de Santiago (BCS), Bolsa de Valores de Colombia (BVC) y Bolsa de Valores de Lima (BVL). An additional evaluation for further research would consist of the calculation of relevant indicators to corroborate the validity of the effects found in this investigation corresponding to the integration of the stock exchanges of Lima, Santiago and Bogota, after the integration of the Mexican stock exchange that occurred in 2014. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents the trajectory of the Bolivia-Brazil relationship of cooperation and energy integration of hydrocarbon oil and natural gas, from which are identified trends in the Brazilian Foreign Policy. Despite different internal and regional integration contexts over time, there is a continuity profile in Brazil's performance in this case. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Este artigo analisa padrões de convergência em séries de retorno de fundos de investimento em ações no Brasil, a partir do uso da metodologia de Phillips e Sul (2007). Ao contrário do que diz a teoria de carteiras e em desacordo com as características desse mercado -- regulação, transparência, eficiência informacional e custos de transação --, evidencia-se um comportamento heterogêneo, a partir da formação de quatro clubes com dinâmicas de transição e composição específicas. A natureza privada da pessoa jurídica gestora, os incentivos associados à cobrança de baixas taxas administrativas, além de taxas de performance e a ênfase nos ganhos compensados pelo risco, diferenciam os fundos perdedores dos vencedores. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article describes and analyzes the need to move forward with a renewed vision of the Latin American integration process. It begins exposing the global context, highlighting the expansion and raising positioning of Asia; and its relations with Latin America, as well as the significant existent space for deepening the social, commercial, and political relationship between the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean. Subsequently, the article describes and analyzes the characteristics of the processes of Latin American integration emphasizing frustrations, challenges and progresses. Finally, it examines how the Pacific Alliance rises as a new integration process that seems to have learned from past experiences, and formulates a new model of integration that operates with a new scheme that does not escape from the specific challenges associated to this particular process which has become a regional and international reference, generating high expectations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the hydropower project to be developed on the Mazaruni River, in Guyana, which seeks to export energy to Brazil. Mazaruni River is located in the Esequibo region, historically claimed by Venezuela. The intention is problematizing the impacts of this project in the relations between Brazil, Guyana and Venezuela. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes the development of cooperation between Argentina and Brazil from their initial rapprochement of 1979 to the construction of Mercosur in 1991. It presents an account of cooperation that emphasizes the power and organizational interests of the armed forces and that challenges the prevailing emphases on democratization and neoliberalism. In doing so, it addresses a methodological problem for qualitative research in international relations: What can be done if our theories of why cooperation occurs affect our perceptions of when it begins? Conventional explanations of Argentine-Brazilian cooperation may be biased toward what historian Herbert Butterfield called 'Whig history,' which sees in past events associations that exist only in the present. These tendencies can alter our periodization of cases, omit or falsely reject important causal variables, and too readily confirm our preferred hypotheses, but they can also be corrected. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Even though the armed conflict seems to have reached a critical point, opening up space an important negotiation of the internal armed conflict that takes more than 50 years, between the FARC-EP and the Colombian government, it is necessary to deepen around the role of the participation of the population, who in a real way expand and make antagonisms complex, it is the people who ultimately will demonstrate the ability to promote and to consolidate the shift, because if it is not thus assumed, the current negotiations will not redound to a real change, where other cycles of war take place, the deepening of the territorial, environmental, social, economic, political conflicts, as it has already happened in the painful history of Colombia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The nucleus of the recent global crisis revolves around the interaction of global imbalances and financial deregulation. This relationship arose in the framework of the highest level of economic interdependence the world has seen. Beyond considering whether Latin American ability to absorb the external shock was the product of better economic fundamentals, the favorable external context, or a combination thereof, in this case, the economies of the region managed to avoid systemic financial collapse. The current global economic panorama is complex and the variety of possible scenarios diverse and Latin American economies provide examples of both strengths and weaknesses. The challenge for these nations will be to consolidate their recent achievements and ensure sustainable economic growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A scholarly debate is emerging on how recent regional trends in Latin America and South America have impacted the meanings and practices of sovereignty. This debate pits two groups engaged in regionalist analysis against each other: the optimists and the skeptics. Optimists argue that recent changes in regionalism are having a transformative impact on sovereignty. Skeptics acknowledge that changes in regionalism have occurred, but that they have been accompanied by persistent and traditional sovereignty meanings and practices. The article employs a tripartite conception of sovereignty regime—sovereign, space, and authority—to sketch the parameters of the debate. Given the recent origins of ALBA, CELAC, and UNASUR, as well as the post-hegemonic regionalism which they reflect and promote, this debate can only be resolved through ambitious qualitative empirical research, especially in South America, the regional experience upon which many of the contending claims are made. Such a research agenda on the regionalism-sovereignty nexus has both significant theoretical and practical implications for understanding Latin America's and South America's unique regional, institutional, and sovereignty patterns, as well as the limits and possibilities for regional governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the history of regional integration in the Americas, drawing lessons from the diverse ways that people have sought to unite the hemisphere. It begins at the point when most of the modern nation-states of Latin America came into being: the nineteenth-century wars for independence. From there, it traces various attempts at regional integration, keeping in mind three fundamental questions: How does regional integration compromise sovereignty? Does it have to? Is it worth sacrificing sovereignty to increase integration? The article concludes that while every attempt at regional integration in the Americas has required the participants to voluntarily sacrifice some measure of their sovereignty, the most successful efforts have been those that either kept the sacrifice to a minimum or offered significant enough rewards to offset the loss of sovereignty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper shows, from an interdisciplinary perspective, the incidence of lack of “stateness" and its construction process in Latin American states, as well as showing the reluctance on the part of Latin American states to transfer sovereignty to regional integrational organizations. First, classical and contemporary ideas of sovereignty are contrasted, in order to understand the development of the sovereignty concept in Latin America and Europe. Second, we interpret how the sovereignty concept has been conceived through Latin American states' formation process. Third, the sovereignty process is addressed within integration thinking and its three big waves: the developmental, neoliberal and post-hegemonic waves. Fourth, the concept of sovereignty in Latin America and its impact on the region are discussed critically. Fifth, current regionalism perspectives are explained. Sixth, the current relationship between sovereignty and regionalization in South America is described. And finally, throughout this paper, we maintain that it is the weakness of “stateness" in the Latin American states which has had an important influence on their reluctance to transfer national sovereignty to regional integration institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is an inherent contradiction between the regional integration projects in Latin America, albeit rhetorically conducted, and the staunch defense by most countries of their national sovereignty, which restricts and opposes many liberalization mechanisms implicit in, and necessary to, the integration processes, based on the rendition of sovereignty in some areas of economic relevance, including, and especially, trade and industrial policies, as well as other sectorial measures. The dilemma is historically compounded by a juridical tradition that places the retraction into an introverted version of the sovereignty principle into the context of conceptual elaborations well known in the international law, such as Calvo doctrine and the Drago principle. Brazil is one of the most resolute promoters of the national sovereignty principle among Latin American countries, clearly expressed in its constitutional chart and foreign policy stances, since the Second Hague peace conference of 1907. Other Latin American countries, mainly in Central America and the Caribbean, are much more motivated by real concerns over recurrent United States interventionism in the regional, in some cases by military means. This framework has somewhat infringed on integration projects, which is also hindered by economic nationalism and state interventionism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At the same time during which the European Union is passing through one of the worst crises in its history, the attempts to promote regionalism in South America are also beset by grave problems, with some commentators suggesting that ‘regionalism is out, sovereignty back in', in the words of Andrés Malamud. This article aims to respond to the question whether there is a connection between the problems confronted in Europe and the difficulties here in the region. In other words, what has been the impact of the European crisis on the prospects for highly developed regionalism in South America. Based on interviews with policy-makers and representatives of Brazilian industry, as well as an analysis of the existing literature, the article argues that, even though both have suffered as a consequence of the general global political and economic trends – and both suffer from similar problems in terms of their strategic thinking – the particularities of each case does not allow for a direct causal link between the European and South American case. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the formative platform of the Congress of Panama of 1826. It seeks to support the hypothesis that the nature and scope of the first test of integration in the Western Hemisphere depended critically on the platform created by Simón Bolívar and other Latin American Independence heroes from the Declaration of Independence of Venezuela in 1810 until the last bilateral agreement of 1826. In that respect, it corroborates the Latin American Identity of the initiative. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines whether or not integration in South America is shaping a new type of regionalism. The author takes the cases of UNASUR and ALBA and shows - on the basis of the characteristics of institutionality, leaderships and identities - what the incentives for cooperation are. One of the essential elements for all integration is the defence agreements that are articulated in different ways in each of the organisations. The article attempts to show that both UNASUR and ALBA were structured using a new logic, by prioritising political agreements over commercial ones. The author describes a new South American notion that is still under construction, but which is more narrative- and discourse-oriented than involving formalised actions. As a result, we cannot conclude that this represents a new type of regionalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes the causes of forgetfulness that has been a constant in the Colombian Amazon and the implications that it has had on the border and foreign policy in the country. It also argues that taking part of a group of global, regional and national transformations, ACTO has been revitalized, which can be the first step to expand the State's institutions on the Amazon territory, the starting point to taking advantage of its strategic potential, and to create synergies with other countries that are part of the Organization to confront a set of threats that defying the rainforest. In addition, the agency can be a vector of South American integration that eventually, could be quite receptive to leadership of Colombia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Se revisa la afirmación, hasta ahora no sometida a verificación, de que los acuerdos de libre comercio (ALC) firmados por los países latinoamericanos - fundamento de sus estrategias de integración económica internacional desde 1990 - han permitido diversificar sus exportaciones y aumentar el número de socios comerciales. La evidencia obtenida de la Base de datos estadísticos sobre el comercio de mercaderías (COMTRADE), sugiere que gran parte del crecimiento exportador en la región ha ocurrido en el margen intensivo, no en el extensivo. La expansión hacia nuevos productos y socios comerciales ha sido limitada, según los índices de concentración. La apuesta de América Latina de diversificar exportaciones a partir de ALC sin estrategias más integrales - debido a un concepto estático de ventajas comparativas - generó resultados exiguos. Por consiguiente, los gobiernos debieran adoptar un enfoque más dinámico respecto de las ventajas comparativas e implementar políticas más activas. Finalmente, se plantean algunas preguntas para futuras investigaciones. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Resumen. El autor estudia las reformas económicas realizadas en América Latina desde los años noventa. Se ha logrado estabilizar el nivel de precios, pero el crecimiento ha sido insuficiente y la inestabilidad económica ha perjudicado la inversión productiva y el empleo. Las frecuentes crisis han sido muy recesivas y han desalentado la formación de capital y la creación de empleo decente. Los flujos financieros han sido determinantes de esta situación general. La positiva recuperación de 2010 retoma la senda de progreso de 2004-2008, pero aún con un alto nivel de precariedad laboral y con falencias graves en las políticas macroeconómicas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the increasing levels of cooperation within Latin American countries, this article suggests that domestic political and institutional variables affect the options for greater integration within countries. Traditional ways of understanding security among policymakers explain the lack of reforms in this sector. The article provides the example of Argentina and Chile, the most advanced countries within South America in terms of cooperation in the field of security. The authors try to demonstrate that several institutional inertias within each country have preempted these two countries from advancing a paradigmatic shift in their security approaches toward each other. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Deploying a two-level perspective, this article analyses the regional and domestic space that the Morales administration has in which to implement the vision of trade articulated in its Plan Nacional de Desarrollo (PND; National Development Plan). Regionally the Morales administration has attempted to combine the solidarity principles of the Alianza Bolivariana para los Pueblos de Nuestra América (ALBA; Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America) with the market-oriented growth possibilities provided by more orthodox integration projects such as the Comunidad Andina de Naciones (CAN; Andean Community of Nations) and the Mercado Común del Sur (Mercosur; Southern Common Market). Domestically the Movimiento al socialismo (MAS; Movement Toward Socialism) government must negotiate the destabilising effects of its trade strategy in a polarised national context where business and civil society actors are critiquing from their respective positions both the solidarity principles and market-oriented elements of the PND trade strategy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article provides a 50-year reassessment of foreign investment and trade in Cuba and locates this analysis within Cuban debates on development and the economics of transition. Transformations contextualised in these debates cover three periods. The 1959–1989 period was characterised by nationalisations and expropriations, the imposition of the US trade embargo, and the trade and economic assistance agreements signed with the Soviet Union. The Special Period crisis emerged in the 1990s and Cuba had to turn to foreign investment and alternative trade options while continuing to reject the adoption of open regionalism and neoliberal policies. The 2005–2008 period was characterised by Cuba's incorporation into the Bolivarian Alternative, a new regional integration model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses the monetary consequences of the Latin American trade integration process. We consider a sample of five countries – Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Mexico and Uruguay – spanning the period 1991–2007. The main question raised pertains to the feasibility of a Monetary Union between L.A. economies. To this end, we study whether this set of countries is characterized by business cycle synchronization with the occurrence of common shocks, a strong similarity in the adjustment process and the convergence of policy responses. We focus especially our attention on two points. First, we try to determine to what extent international disturbances influence the domestic business cycles through trade and/or financial channels. Second, we analyze the impact of the adoption of different exchange rate regimes on the countries’ responses to shocks. All these features are the main issues in the literature relative to regional integration and OCA process. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This article examines the dramatic refutation of neoliberalism in Latin and South America, where left-leaning leaders have been elected in a majority of countries. Throughout the 1990s, trade liberalization was being advocated by the United States and adopted by several nations such as Argentina. However, economic crisis prompted a backlash and now many states are rejecting the model of capitalism pushed by the U.S. The author says Mexico, Brazil and Argentina are the three most important nations that will determine the economic future of the region.

In this article, the author reflects upon regional integration in Latin America. He gives several arguments in favor of regional cooperation which includes common historical backgrounds, stable borders, and similar problems of corruption and income concentration in the countries. He also mentions the steps taken for economic integration which included the formation of Latin American Free Trade Association (LAFTA), and discusses the influence of the U.S. in deciding region's economic policies.