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    New Approaches to Closing the Fiscal Gap
    (Washington, DC : World Bank, 2022-10-04) World Bank
    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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    World Development Report 2022: Finance for an Equitable Recovery
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2022-02-15) World Bank
    World Development Report 2022: Finance for an Equitable Recovery examines the central role of finance in the economic recovery from COVID-19. Based on an in-depth look at the consequences of the crisis most likely to affect low- and middle-income economies, it advocates a set of policies and measures to mitigate the interconnected economic risks stemming from the pandemic—risks that may become more acute as stimulus measures are withdrawn at both the domestic and global levels. Those policies include the efficient and transparent management of nonperforming loans to mitigate threats to financial stability, insolvency reforms to allow for the orderly reduction of unsustainable debts, innovations in risk management and lending models to ensure continued access to credit for households and businesses, and improvements in sovereign debt management to preserve the ability of governments to support an equitable recovery.
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    Reconocimiento y Revalidación en Chile de Títulos Obtenidos en el Extranjero
    (Washington, DC, 2022) World Bank
    El proceso de reconocimiento y revalidación de títulos y grados académicos es de gran importancia para la inclusión laboral de las personas migrantes en Chile. Un título profesional, técnico-superior o de grado académico faculta a quien lo obtuvo a ejercer la profesión correspondiente. Por lo tanto, el reconocimiento o revalidación de un título de educación superior es de gran importancia para las personas migrantes quienes, habiendo obtenido un título o grado de educación superior (el 26,8% del total de la población migrante) en su país de origen o en otro país, puedan ejercer su profesión en Chile y participar en el mercado laboral desempeñándose acorde a sus habilidades y competencias. Un proceso de reconocimiento y revalidación de credenciales efectivo no solo contribuye a la inserción laboral de quienes migran sino también a la productividad y crecimiento económico del país.
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    Renewing with Growth
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2021-03-29) World Bank
    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) World Bank
    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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    Discussion at the Center for Global Development
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2019-11-05) Malpass, David
    David Malpass, President of the World Bank, addressed the common challenge presented by slowing world growth. He remarked that governance issues are apparent around the world. On matters of debt, he emphasized dispute settlement, debt contract transparency, contract fairness, and facilitating better living standards. He noted that some countries’ debt payments are in arrears.
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    Opening Remarks at the 2019 Annual Meetings Opening Press Conference
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2019-10-17) Malpass, David
    David Malpass, President of the World Bank Group, highlighted the urgent priorities for discussion with shareholders. Global growth is slowing. Investment is sluggish, manufacturing activity is soft, and trade is weakening. The challenges of climate change and fragility are making poor countries more vulnerable. This backdrop makes our goals of reducing extreme poverty and boosting shared prosperity even harder. He suggested that with the right mix of policies and structural reforms, countries can unleash growth that's broadly shared across all segments of society. He spoke about how the Bank is helping countries build strong programs tailored to the unique circumstances of their economies. He highlighted the importance of education. He mentioned the proposed IDA replenishment, and reaffirmed commitment to projects on climate and on gender inclusion. In conclusion, he said that the well-designed structural reforms are needed to unlock growth and build the foundations for future prosperity.
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    Driving Growth from the Ground Up
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2019-10-07) Malpass, David
    David Malpass, President of the World Bank Group, spoke about the urgency of growth in developing countries. He discussed innovations in digital financial services that provide secure systems to allow poor people to electronically receive remittances, foreign aid, and social safety-net payments as well as their earnings. He cautioned about the slow global growth, and it's paramount that countries carry out well-designed structural reforms to ignite domestic growth. He highlighted on the importance of a clear analysis and understanding of a country's laws and regulations and a path of reforms or catalytic investments that will expand the private sector. Finally, he concluded by saying that World Bank Group won’t give up on its main goal of reducing extreme poverty.
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    The Innovation Paradox: Developing-Country Capabilities and the Unrealized Promise of Technological Catch-Up
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2017-10-03) Cirera, Xavier ; Maloney, William F.
    Since Schumpeter, economists have argued that vast productivity gains can be achieved by investing in innovation and technological catch-up. Yet, as this volume documents, developing country firms and governments invest little to realize this potential, which dwarfs international aid flows. Using new data and original analytics, the authors uncover the key to this innovation paradox in the lack of complementary physical and human capital factors, particularly firm managerial capabilities, that are needed to reap the returns to innovation investments. Hence, countries need to rebalance policy away from R&D-centered initiatives – which are likely to fail in the absence of sophisticated private sector partners – toward building firm capabilities, and embrace an expanded concept of the National Innovation System that incorporates a broader range of market and systemic failures. The authors offer guidance on how to navigate the resulting innovation policy dilemma: as the need to redress these additional failures increases with distance from the frontier, government capabilities to formulate and implement the policy mix become weaker. This book is the first volume of the World Bank Productivity Project, which seeks to bring frontier thinking on the measurement and determinants of productivity to global policy makers.
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    Paraguay Jobs Diagnostic: The Dynamic Transformation of Employment
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2017-07) Ruppert Bulmer, Elizabeth N. ; Watson, Samantha Maria ; De Padua, David Keith Santos
    Paraguay in the last decade and a half not only experienced robust economic growth and improved labor outcomes across sectors, it also saw marked improvements in job quality and the creation of many new jobs that are good for development. Good jobs for development, the focus of this analysis, are those that boost living standards, have higher levels of productivity, and enhance social cohesion through positive social externalities. The analysis in this report describes the ways in which employment outcomes have improved for a majority of Paraguayans, the degree to which certain types of workers have not benefited from ongoing dynamic transformations, and the challenges for sustaining and enhancing labor market gains in the future.