This book accounts for the work done around the two central aspects of Piero Sraffa's contribution to economic analysis, namely the criticism of the neoclassical theory of value and distribution and the reconstruction of economic theory along the lines of the Classical approach.

After contracting in 2009, GDP expanded by 5.9% in Latin America and the Caribbean in 2010, albeit with the region's hallmark differences in performance from one country to another. The expansion in output was driven by strong domestic demand in the forms of both consumption and investment, and by buoyant external demand. On the domestic demand side, private consumption (up 5.9%) was sustained by an upturn in employment and wages, brightening economic expectations, an expansion in lending to the private sector and, in some countries, an upswing in remittances from emigrant workers. Public consumption rose at a more modest rate of 3.9% and investment jumped by 14.5%, with strong growth in the machinery and equipment segments in particular. On the external demand side, exports of goods and services were especially buoyant -rising by over 10%- in the Southern Common Market (MERCOSUR) countries, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Mexico and Nicaragua. Meanwhile, imports of goods and services increased by more than 10% at constant prices on the back of robust domestic demand within the region, which rose 7.5%.

Over five decades, John Williamson has written across an extraordinarily broad set of topics in international economics ranging from international monetary economics to development policy. The arc of his scholarship follows the main preoccupations of international economists during the second half of the 20th century and the first decade of the 21st. Bridging the scholarly literature and policy debates, his publications on the Washington Consensus, exchange rate policy, and international monetary reform have profoundly influenced public discourse, government policy, and the evolution of the economics discipline. As John marked his 75th birthday, his friends and colleagues prepared this collection of essays to celebrate these many contributions and reflect on their relevance to the challenges that confront the world economy in the wake of the 2008 09 global financial crisis and its current aftermath in Europe.

The book argues that the Cuban Revolution should be understood as a model of socialist human development. Several particular features of this model were critical to the survival of the Cuban Revolution under conditions of neoliberal globalization.

This book presents a longer term vision of Latin American society and economies, within which current policy debates and actions must be anchored. It includes a set of multigenerational issues that must be tackled urgently in order for countries in the region to sharply reduce inequities as well as raise their economic growth rates. This book offers a bold and ambitious new vision of Latin America and offers an agenda for such a resurgence of Latin America. It presents a strategy for the regional economies to realize this vision by sharply raising their growth rates while achieving much more inclusive societies.