Rethinking Development in Latin America

ABSTRACT

Latin American countries face a crossroad that demands profound change in their development paradigm. In the last four decades economic growth, investment, and productivity have shown poor performance. This has made it impossible to break with the productive heterogeneity that characterises the region and its dependence on low value-added productive sectors and commodity-dependent export structures. Although there has been a positive advance in human development, high levels of inequality, poverty, social exclusion, and high labour market informality have been persistent in the countries of the region. Added to these structural problems is the need to face climate change, that has important distributive and social effects and requires a significant amount of investment in adaption and mitigation a will require a change in the development paradigm. A fiscal sustainability framework will be essential to ensure the viability of the public spending required to promote structural change. The framework should prioritise domestic resource mobilisation, through public revenues, which have historically been insufficient to meet the demands for public spending.

KEYWORDS:

• Latin America
• economic growth
• economic structure
• fiscal conditions
• human and social development
• climate change

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Non-metallic minerals, paper, chemicals, basic metals, and machinery and equipment, including transport equipment.

2 See https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/GB.XPD.RSDV.GD.ZS.

3 Also Venezuela until 2014, but there is no information on the inequality in that country after that year.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

José Antonio Ocampo

José Antonio Ocampo is Professor at the School of International and Public Affairs, Member of the Committee on Global Thought, and co-President of the Initiative for Policy Dialogue at Columbia University. He has occupied numerous positions at the United Nations and his native Colombia, including UN Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs, Executive Secretary of the UN Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), and Minister of Finance and Public Credit on two occasions, Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Director of the National Planning Office of Colombia, and Member of the Board of Directors of Banco de la República (Colombia’s central bank).

Daniel Titelman

Daniel Titelman is Director of the Economic Development Division of the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC). He was Chief of the Financing for Development Division and coordinator of the Special Studies Unit of the Executive Secretary at ECLAC. He has also worked in issues related to financing and social security, particularly in health and pension reforms. He has participated in the elaboration of many institutional ECLAC reports on issues related to macroeconomics, financing for development and social protection. He has also provided technical assistance to various countries in Latin America and the Caribbean.