Government strategies for setting energy prices are not uniform across the Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) region—or even across fuels. Instead, they cover a full spectrum, ranging from discretionary price-fixing at one end to pure market-based approaches at the other. In between is a wide variety of other schemes such as price stabilization funds, import or export parity pricing, price smoothing through tax levels, and targeted direct price subsidies or vouchers. Governments in the LAC region, however, tend to be small as measured by government revenues as a percentage of GDP. So their limited government resources have to be used wisely and be better targeted to the poor and vulnerable. Although energy subsidies are an inefficient policy tool for protecting the welfare of the poor, energy price increases can have a big impact on these households. Energy Pricing Policies for Inclusive Growth in Latin America and the Caribbean finds that energy subsidies are highly regressive in an absolute sense—that is, the lion’s share of every dollar spent on keeping energy prices low benefits wealthier households. However, subsidies for fuels that are widely used for cooking and heating—liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), natural gas, and kerosene—as well as for electricity, can be relatively neutral or progressive, implying that lower-income households capture benefits that are proportionate to their expenditures. In other words, although poorer households receive very little from every dollar spent on energy subsidies, that small amount may represent an important share of their expenditures. It is important, then, that governments expand the coverage and depth of their social safety nets to provide relief for poor households if energy prices rise. This report also finds that aggregate price impacts and the competitiveness effects of energy price increases are moderate to small and can be smoothed out through macropolicy responses.

The 2018 Macroeconomic Report, A Mandate to Grow, revisits the growth debate that has been raging in the region for the past half century. Viewing the debate from this long-term perspective allows for a focus on the structural factors that have prevented Latin America and the Caribbean from reaching the growth potential required to keep pace with faster growing regions and to fulfill the aspirations of its population.

The Latin American Economic Outlook 2021: Working Together for a Better Recovery aims to analyse and provide policy recommendations for a strong, inclusive and environmentally sustainable recovery in the region. The report explores policy actions to improve social protection mechanisms and increase social inclusion, foster regional integration and strengthen industrial strategies, and rethink the social contract to restore trust and empower citizens at all stages of the policy‐making process.

This book provides insights into infrastructure sector performance by focusing on the links between key indicators for utilities, and changes in ownership, regulatory agency governance, and corporate governance, among other dimensions. By linking inputs and outputs over the last 15 years, the analysis is able to uncover key determinants that have impacted performance and address why the effects of such dimensions resulted in significant changes in the performance of infrastructure service provision.

The Extended Energy-Growth Nexus: Theory and Empirical Applications advances the established bivariate econometric relationship which inextricably links energy consumption to economic growth. The book extends this "nexus" to accommodate variables such as globalization, institutional variables, financial variables and the energy "mix." Rooted firmly in the modern literature, it covers empirical applications such as the evaluation of renewable energy incentives, the electricity generation mix, and sustainable development. Each application area incorporates modern econometric methodologies, including VAR, panel VAR, ARDL, panel ARDL, Asymmetric panel ARDL, and Panel Quantile Regression. Throughout chapters are accompanied by illustrative Stata and EViews code, demonstrating their uses in applied research. - Primes researchers to understand advanced literature and current methodologies within the energy-growth nexus - Provides a rich set of working tools for econometricians working on real-world energy and growth problems - Accompanied by representative databases and illustrative Stata and EViews code, facilitating replication and use

After its worst economic crisis in 100 years, Latin America and the Caribbean countries are emerging from the COVID†?19 pandemic. The need to recover dynamic, inclusive, and sustainable growth to redress both the legacy of the pandemic and long†?standing social needs has never been more acute. However, despite progress in some areas, the region is facing a weaker recovery than expected given the favorable international tailwinds and is likely return to the low growth rates of the 2010s. Moreover, growth could be further slowed by both internal and external factors: the emergence of a new variant of the virus, a rise in international interest rates to combat global inflation, and high levels of debt in both the private and public sector. Beyond offering the current macroeconomic outlook of the region and the near†?term challenges it faces, this report explores three broad areas where growth†?advancing policies and reforms could be undertaken within a constrained fiscal context: mobilizing sources of revenue that appear to be growthneutral; improving public spending efficiency to free up resources for other purposes; and reallocating spending to areas with highest growth and social impact.