Although Latin American and Caribbean countries have assigned a high priority to increasing exports, export performance in most cases remains deficient. This work investigates why this is so, identifying the policies that determine successes and failures in Brazil, Chile, Colombia and Mexico.

This study seeks to identify the determinants of Brazil's favourable export performance until the mid-1980s, especially in the field of manufactured goods. Two hypotheses figure prominently in the analysis. The export success may be due to Brazil's specialization in industries which made intensive use of the country's relatively abundant productive factors. Alternatively, economic policies may be responsible for the success in manufactured exports.

Brazil is at crossroads, emerging slowly from a historic recession that was preceded by a huge economic boom. Reasons for the historic bust following a boom are manifold. Policy mistakes were an important contributory factor, and included the pursuit of countercyclical policies, introduced to deal with the effects of the global financial crisis, beyond the point where they were helpful. More fundamentally, it reflects longstanding structural weaknesses plaguing the economy, that also help explain Brazil’s uninspiring growth performance over the past four decades.

This review of Brazil's trade policy focuses on the manufacturing industry and its impact on industrial efficiency and manufactured export growth. It includes discussion of the Brazilian experience with policies to promote and regulate the development and acquisition of industrial technology and their impact on output and exports. The report is organized in three separate parts: (i) background on industrial development; (ii) a review of trade policies, concentrating on a quantification of the relative incentives for production oriented toward the domestic market and for exports; and (iii) a review of technology policy, including development of human resources, basic research and development, industrial technology, and technology transfer. Three case studies exemplify the main types of technological transfer. The report does not attempt to elaborate all possible policy implications but to present the main information and analytical tools to be considered in the preparation and evaluation of policy alternatives.

Seventeen in a series of annual reports comparing business regulation in 190 economies, Doing Business 2020 measures aspects of regulation affecting 10 areas of everyday business activity.

Global trade is of vital interest to citizens as well as policymakers, yet it is widely misunderstood. This compact exposition of the market forces underlying international commerce addresses both of these concerned groups, as well as the needs of students and scholars. Although it contains no equations, it is almost mathematical in its elegance, precision, and power of expression. Understanding Global Trade provides a thorough explanation of what shapes the international organization of production and distribution and the resulting trade flows. It reviews the evolution of knowledge in this field from Adam Smith to today as a process of theoretical modeling, accumulation of new empirical data, and then revision of analytical frameworks in response to evidence and changing circumstances. It explains the sources of comparative advantage and how they lead countries to specialize in making products which they then sell to other countries. While foreign trade contributes to the overall welfare of a nation, it also creates winners and losers, and Helpman describes mechanisms through which trade affects a country's income distribution. The book provides a clear and original account of the revolutions in trade theory of the 1980s and the most recent decade. It shows how scholars shifted the analysis of trade flows from the sectoral level to the business-firm level, to elucidate the growing roles of multinational corporations, offshoring, and outsourcing in the international division of labor. Helpman’s explanation of the latest research findings is essential for an understanding of world affairs.