Latin America in the rearview mirror

• 成果类型: Article; Proceedings Paper
• 署名作者: Cole, HL; Ohanian, LE; Riascos, A; Schmitz, JA
• 署名单位: University of California System; University of California Los Angeles; National Bureau of Economic Research; Federal Reserve System - USA; Federal Reserve Bank - Minneapolis; Banco de la Republica Colombia
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF MONETARY ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0304-3932
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jmoneco.2004.09.002
• 发表日期: 2005
• 页码: 69-107
• 关键词: Latin America

摘要

Latin American countries are the only Western countries that are poor and that are not gaining ground on the U.S. This paper evaluates why Latin America has not replicated Western economic success. We find that this failure is primarily due to TFP differences. Latin America's TFP gap is not plausibly accounted for by human capital differences, but rather reflects inefficient production. We argue that competitive barriers are a promising channel for understanding low Latin TFP. We document that Latin America has many more international and domestic competitive barriers than do Western and successful East Asian countries. We also document a number of microeconomic case in Latin America in which large reductions in competitive barriers increase Latin American productivity to Western levels. (C) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.