Latin America and the Caribbean Economic Review
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The Latin America and the Caribbean Economic Review examines the recent economic developments and assesses the outlook for the Latin America and the Caribbean region. In addition, every edition focuses on a relevant development challenge for the region. The report is produced by the World Bank's Office of the Chief Economist for Latin America and the Caribbean.
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Publication
New Approaches to Closing the Fiscal Gap
(Washington, DC : World Bank, 2022-10-04)As the COVID‐19 crisis recedes, Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) is back to work and looking forward. Reported deaths related to the pandemic are low and have plausibly converged to global levels. Yet low vaccination rates in some countries leave them vulnerable to new variants. In most countries, gross domestic product (GDP) and employment have fully recovered their 2019 levels, although forecasted growth rates might be said to be “resiliently mediocre”: banking systems appear sound, and rising debt burdens are manageable so far, but growth is not expected to exceed the low levels of the 2010 decade. Poverty in terms of income (monetary poverty) has largely receded with the economic recovery, but the longer‐term scars of the pandemic in terms of education and health have planted deep seeds of future inequality. Redressing these problems and undertaking the structural reforms needed to reach higher levels of growth and reduce poverty remain central on the policy agenda. The new and unwelcome entrant in the policy space is inflation. While comparable to advanced country levels and well managed by regional monetary authorities, inflation nonetheless is being propelled by forces that may give it more staying power than originally hoped. Finally, public deficits induced by the pandemic and the need to finance critical government programs and directions have opened a fiscal gap and led to constrained fiscal space. The need to close the fiscal gap, put debt on a sustainable footing, and generate fiscal space to finance necessary physical and social investments has led to a search for new revenues and in particular to pressure to increase income taxes. In looking at any tax hike, concerns center on the possible depressive effects on growth, overall progressivity, and possible incentives for informality. This report presents new evidence on these effects for value added taxes (VAT) and income taxes. It also advocates for steps to cut wasteful government spending and increase government efficiency - both to generate substantial resources and as an entry point to a broader agenda of state modernization and generating public trust. -
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Consolidating the Recovery: Seizing Green Growth Opportunities
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2022-04-07)The Latin America and the Caribbean region is consolidating its recovery from the COVID‐19 crisis, but the road ahead poses challenges: The damage inflicted by the pandemic on education and poverty require redress; new variants may appear; rising global inflation presents new policy dilemmas; and the long‐standing reform agenda needed to lay the foundations for renewed and inclusive growth remains pending. Further, the global context is evolving rapidly. Over the medium term, the tragedy unfolding in Ukraine will affect the region through unpredictable channels. Over the longer term, increased global alarm over the pace of climate change raises new policy issues. The region’s contribution to greenhouse gases is modest and can be reduced, but the impact of climate change on its people and productive sectors will require significant adaptation. The good news is that LAC’s unique endowments positions it well to seize emerging green growth opportunities if well‐managed. A key message is that improving the region’s capability to adapt and innovate needs to be placed at the center of both the growth and greening agendas and can generate synergies between them. -
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Recovering Growth: Rebuilding Dynamic Post‐COVID-19 Economies amid Fiscal Constraints
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2021-10-06)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 growth-neutral; improving public spending efficiency to free up resources for other purposes; and reallocating spending to areas with highest growth and social impact. -
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Renewing with Growth
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2021-03-29)Latin America and the Caribbean suffered the largest death toll from Covid‐19 across developing regions and the sharpest decline in economic activity. With fewer school days and lower employment rates, with higher public debt and more firms under stress, the effects could be long‐lasting. The crisis also triggered large‐scale economic restructuring, with productivity higher in the expanding than in the contracting sectors. Accelerated digitization could instill dynamism in finance, trade and labor markets, but it may amplify inequality within and across the countries in the region. Technology could transform the energy sector as well. Latin America and the Caribbean has the cleanest and potentially cheapest electricity generation matrix of all developing regions. But its electricity is the most expensive, due mainly to inefficiencies. Distributed generation within countries and electricity trade across countries, could make energy greener and cheaper, provided that the pricing is right. -
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The Cost of Staying Healthy
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2020-10-09)Latin America and the Caribbean was hit hard by the Covid-19 pandemic, which arrived on the back of years of disappointing economic growth and limited social progress, and after a wave of social unrest. This report reviews the impacts of the crisis as well as the policy responses by countries, which often involved sizeable social transfers. It also presents growth forecasts, and quarterly growth estimates based on satellite imagery. With countries experiencing a diverse mix of health costs and economic costs, the report analyzes how the effectiveness of containment policies, and their impact on economic activity, differ between richer and poorer countries. It also assesses the cost of staying healthy in normal times, showing how it is affected by the structure of the domestic pharmaceutical sector and by the effectiveness of public procurement of medicines. As the region may have to live with the virus for a while, four policy directions are proposed for discussion. -
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The Economy in the Time of Covid-19
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2020-04-12)After a period of rapid economic growth associated with high commodity prices, the region had entered a phase of lackluster performance. Recent developments, including a new oil price shock, and the outbreak of the Covid-19 epidemic will push the region into recession. Many countries are struggling to contain the spread of the Covid-19 epidemic while avoiding a dramatic decline in economic activity. The report analyzes how to think about this tradeoff. It estimates the potential health costs, assesses the effectiveness of diverse containment strategies, and discusses how large the economic cost could be. The current crisis is unprecedented because it combines a fall in global demand, tighter financial conditions and a major supply shock. The response needs to consider how to socialize the losses, how to prevent a collapse of the financial sector, how to protect jobs and livelihoods, and how to manage and divest the assets that will inevitably end up in the hands of the state. -
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Trade Integration as a Pathway to Development?
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2019-10-10)After a period of rapid economic growth associated with high commodity prices, the Latin America and Caribbean region has again entered a phase of lackluster performance. Overall this slowdown seems more self-inflicted than imported, and the outlook for the region is not encouraging either. A tepid export response constrains the prospect of growing through external demand whereas limited fiscal space leaves little room to stimulate domestic demand. The outlook could deteriorate further if the international environment became less conducive. This report explores whether inward-looking development strategies could be one of the reasons for slow growth in Latin America and the Caribbean. Trade barriers are higher than in other developing regions, and while numerous preferential trade agreements have been signed, many of them are intra-regional. The report shows that South-North agreements are associated with increases in economic complexity and faster economic growth than South-South agreements. It illustrates the point by assessing the economic, social, spatial and environmental impacts of two major: South-North agreements signed over the last year. -
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Effects of the Business Cycle on Social Indicators in Latin America and the Caribbean: When Dreams Meet Reality
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2019-04-04)After mediocre growth in 2018 of 0.7 percent. LAC is expected to perform only marginally better in 2019 (growth of 0.9 percent) followed by a much more solid growth of 2.1 percent in 2020. LAC will face both internal and external challenges during 2019. On the domestic front. the recession in Argentina; a slower than expected recovery in Brazil from the 2014-2015 recession, anemic growth in Mexico. and the continued deterioration of Venezuela. present the biggest challenges. On the external front. the sharp drop in net capital inflows to the region since early 2018 and the monetary policy normalization in the United States stand among the greatest perils. Furthermore, the recent increase in poverty in Brazil because of the recession points to the large effects that the business cycle may have on poverty. The core of this report argues that social indicators that are very sensitive to the business cycle may yield a highly misleading picture of permanent social gains in the region. -
Publication
From Known Unknowns to Black Swans: How to Manage Risk in Latin America and the Caribbean
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2018-10-05)After a growth recovery, with an expansion of 1.1 percent in 2017, the region has encountered some bumps in the road. The Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) region is expected to grow at a modest rate of 0.6 percent in 2018 and 1.6 percent in 2019. This slowdown in the region’s recovery is mainly explained by the crisis that started in Argentina in April, the growth slowdown in Brazil, and the continuing economic, social, and humanitarian collapse in Venezuela. Furthermore, net capital inflows to the region have fallen dramatically since early 2018, bringing once again to the fore the risks faced by LAC. In addition, natural disasters such as earthquakes and hurricanes have brought devastation to the region with disturbing frequency. The core of the report analyzes the foundations of risk, develops a theoretical framework to price risk instruments, and reviews how LAC has managed risk in practice. The overall message of the report is that there are different types of risk: (i) those that follow standard probabilistic distributions that can be easily insured by the market; and (ii) those that exhibit fat-tails (i.e., non-negligible probabilities of extreme events) that are much harder to ensure by the market (like earthquakes). Finally, there are “black swans” that, by definition, are unpredictable events that cannot be insured and force countries to rely exclusively on ex-post aid and/or broad preventive measures. In other words, the fatter are the tails of a distribution, the less market insurance is available, and the more countries will have to rely on ex-post aid. Yet progress in managing risk continues to be made (the Catastrophe Bond for earthquakes in the Pacific Alliance, recently sponsored by the World Bank, being an outstanding example). This would have been unthinkable some time ago. New knowledge and insurance schemes, all supported by institutions such as the World Bank, will undoubtedly make LAC a safer region to live and prosper. -
Publication
Fiscal Adjustment in Latin America and the Caribbean: Short-Run Pain, Long-Run Gain?
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2018-04-17)After a growth slowdown that lasted six years, the Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) region has finally turned the corner and resumed growth at a modest rate of 1.1 percent in 2017 and 1.8 percent expected in 2018. This reflects a more favorable external environment, particularly a recovery in commodity prices. In spite of the benign external environment, most LAC countries still face a fragile fiscal situation. While gradual fiscal adjustments have started in several countries, most countries are still running fiscal deficits and debt levels are high. Further fiscal consolidation is needed to preserve the substantial gains achieved by the region in recent times, in terms of lower inflation, less poverty and inequality, and inclusive growth. This Semiannual Report analyzes the complex decisions regarding fiscal adjustment policies.