Over the last twenty years Latin America has seen a definitive movement toward civilian rule. Significant trade, fiscal, and monetary reforms have accompanied this shift, exposing previously state-led economies to the forces of the market. Despite persistent economic and political hardships, the combination of civilian regimes and market-based strategies has proved to be remarkably resilient and still dominates the region. This book focuses on the effects of market reforms on domestic politics in Latin America. While considering civilian rule as a constant, the book examines and compares domestic political responses in six countries that embraced similar packages of reforms in the 1980s—Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Mexico, Peru, and Venezuela. The contributors focus on how ambitious measures such as liberalization, privatization, and deregulation yielded mixed results in these countries and in doing so they identify three main patterns of political economic adjustment. In Argentina and Chile, the implementation of market reforms has gone hand in hand with increasingly competitive politics. In Brazil and Mexico, market reforms helped to catalyze transitions from entrenched authoritarian rule. Finally, in Peru and Venezuela, traditional political systems have collapsed and civilian rule has been repeatedly challenged. The contributors include Carol Wise (University of Southern California), Karen L. Remmer (Duke University), Carol Graham (Brookings Institution), Stefano Pettinato (United Nations Development Programme), Consuelo Cruz (Tufts University), Juan E. Corradi (New York University), Delia M. Boylan (Chicago Public Radio), Riordan Roett (Johns Hopkins University), Martín Tanaka (Institute for Peruvian Studies, Lima), and Kenneth M. Roberts (University of New Mexico).

Central America is undergoing an important transition. Urban populations are increasing at accelerated speeds, bringing pressing challenges for development, as well as opportunities to boost sustained, inclusive and resilient growth. Today, 59 percent of the region’s population lives in urban areas, but it is expected that 7 out of 10 people will live in cities within the next generation. At current rates of urbanization, Central America’s urban population will double in size by 2050, welcoming over 25 million new urban dwellers calling for better infrastructure, higher coverage and quality of urban services and greater employment opportunities. With more people concentrated in urban areas, Central American governments at the national and local levels face both opportunities and challenges to ensure the prosperity of their country’s present and future generations. The Central America Urbanization Review: Making Cities Work for Central America provides a better understanding of the trends and implications of urbanization in the six Central American countries -Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and Panama- and the actions that central and local governments can take to reap the intended benefits of this transformation. The report makes recommendations on how urban policies can contribute to addressing the main development challenges the region currently faces such as lack of social inclusion, high vulnerability to natural disasters, and lack of economic opportunities and competitiveness. Specifically, the report focuses on four priority areas for Central American cities: institutions for city management, access to adequate and well-located housing, resilience to natural disasters, and competitiveness through local economic development. This book is written for national and local policymakers, private sector actors, civil society, researchers and development partners in Central America and all around the world interested in learning more about the opportunities that urbanization brings in the 21st century.

Analysis of Latin America's economy focusing on development, covering the colonial roots of inequality, boom and bust cycles, labor markets, and fiscal and monetary policy. Latin America is richly endowed with natural resources, fertile land, and vibrant cultures. Yet the region remains much poorer than its neighbors to the north. Most Latin American countries have not achieved standards of living and stable institutions comparable to those found in developed countries, have experienced repeated boom-bust cycles, and remain heavily reliant on primary commodities. This book studies the historical roots of Latin America's contemporary economic and social development, focusing on poverty and income inequality dating back to colonial times. It addresses today's legacies of the market-friendly reforms that took hold in the 1980s and 1990s by examining successful stabilizations and homemade monetary and fiscal institutional reforms. It offers a detailed analysis of trade and financial liberalization, twenty–first century-growth, and the decline in poverty and income inequality. Finally, the book offers an overall analysis of inclusive growth policies for development—including gender issues and the informal sector—and the challenges that lie ahead for the region, with special attention to pressing demands by the vibrant and vocal middle class, youth unemployment, and indigenous populations.

Countries have been competing against each other in order to attract financial investment and human capital for decades. However, emerging economies have a long way to go before they achieve the same levels of competitiveness as a developed economy. Lack of firm institutions, inadequate infrastructure, and a lack of trust in the legal system are urgent and unavoidable factors that emerging economies must address. The Handbook of Research on Increasing the Competitiveness of SMEs provides innovative insights on integrating, adapting, and building models and strategies compatible with the development of competitiveness in small and medium enterprises in emerging countries. The content within this publication examines quality management, organizational leadership, and digital security. It is designed for policymakers, entrepreneurs, managers, executives, business professionals, academicians, researchers, and students.

First published in 1993. Latin America is undergoing a process of profound economic and social change. The industrial import substitution that continued for several decades was quantitatively successful in terms of industrialization but - like inward-oriented industrialization in the socialist countries - failed to raise the economies of the region to international productivity levels. The attempt at catch-up industrialization outside the reference frame of the world market led to economic stagnation, social crises, serious environmental degradation and the obstruction of social development. The following papers included in this book, show that the development of competitive advantages is initially determined by the new macro policy and by modernization at enterprise level.

Does enterprise participation in global markets ensure sustainable income growth? Policies have often been designed in the belief that this is true, but competitiveness and participation in international markets may take very different forms, and developing countries do not always benefit. This book presents a series of rich and original field studies from Latin America, conducted by the authors with the same consistent methodological approach, and represents a theory-generating exercise within clusters and economic development literature. The main question addressed is how Latin American small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) may participate in global markets in ways that provide for sustainable income growth, the “high road” to competitiveness. In contrast, the “low road” is often typically followed by small firms from developing countries, which often compete by squeezing wages and revenues rather than by increasing productivity, salaries, and profits.