This paper reviews the determinants of Latin America's uneven growth based on an accounting decomposition that breaks down countries' growth (relative to the world) into three trade-related channels: (i) an export pull measuring the traction exerted by the country's exports, (ii) an external leverage measuring the impact of the country's use of external resources, and (iii) a domestic response measuring the impact of the country's imports on its domestic income.
... See More + This decomposition brings to light three regional growth dynamics: the first is centered on commodities and South America, the second on manufactures and Mexico, and the third on services and Central America. The evidence points toward the need for a trade-oriented growth agenda that puts a premium on raising exports and making countries more attractive to people, not just capital. The latter in turn adds urgency to healing the region’s social fractures and dealing with its institutional weaknesses.
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Policy Research Working Paper WPS8871 JUN 03, 2019
This international workshop held in Santiago de Chile on April 9, is the final one of a series of activities which the World Bank has been supporting since 2014 through the Latin American Open Parliamentary Network to strengthen the region’s legislative branches to ensure greater transparency.
... See More + The objective of the workshop, hosted by the Chilean House of Representatives, was to discuss the implementation of Chile’s transparency agenda, including the role played by Parliament in implementing transparency reforms. To this end, the event had special invitees, such as the Comptrollers of Peru and Chile, in addition to the Chilean Attorney General’s Office. The event also had the participation of public sector actors, academia, international organizations and civil society.
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A well-designed internal administrative process for reviewing tax decisions can contribute toeconomic efficiency, competitiveness, and growth by accurately identifying errors in tax administration, lowering compliance costs for taxpayers, and enhancing the credibility and popularlegitimacy of the tax regime.
... See More + This toolkit describes the administrative processes that various jurisdictions in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) use to review tax decisions and analyzes their relative efficiency and effectiveness. The toolkit is designed to provide policymakers, tax officials, donor agencies, and development partners with a framework for improving the business climate by enhancing the quality of the administrative tax-review process, and it offers practical advice for designing and implementing tax-review procedures based on good-practice principles derived from the international experience. While the toolkit focuses on the LAC region, its conclusions and guidelines are directly applicable to countries around the world. After providing an overview of the key concepts of administrative tax review, the toolkit describes the most salient lessons learned from the international experience, examines recent global trends and innovations, and explores the tax-review mechanisms used by 23 countries in the LAC region. This approach reveals how various concepts apply in practice while highlighting priority areas forreform. The toolkit’s detailed account of the most common tax-review issues facing LAC countriesis designed to inform national strategies for improving tax administration. The toolkit also offersan analysis of cutting-edge developments in information and communications technology and theirpotential to strengthen various aspects of administrative tax review. It concludes by underscoringthe key role that an effective communications strategy plays in the successful implementation oftax-administration reforms. The toolkit draws on three main sources of information: (i) the experience gained by the World Bank Group through more than 20 years of engagement in tax policy, (ii) the international literature on tax policies and systems, and (iii) a survey examining tax administration and related issues in 23 LAC countries. The analysis is based primarily on data collected in 2016, and thus it may not fully reflect the latest round of reforms in all countries.
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After mediocre growth in 2018 of 0.7 percent. Latin America and the Caribbean (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.
... See More + 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.
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After mediocre growth in 2018 of 0.7 percent. Latin America and the Caribbean (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.
... See More + 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.
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After mediocre growth in 2018 of 0.7 percent. Latin America and the Caribbean (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.
... See More + 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.
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This paper investigates the relative importance of different channels in explaining the low share of industrial employment in Latin America relative to the economies that employ a large share of the workforce in industry.
... See More + Differences in domestic final consumption shares play a pivotal role and can account for 50-70 percent of the industrial share gap. The paper finds limited support for the comparative advantage hypothesis, as differences in trading patterns account for less than 15 percent of the gap. More important are the differences in sectoral linkages and wage gaps which account for more than 30 percent of the industrial employment gap individually.
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Policy Research Working Paper WPS8791 MAR 25, 2019
This gender and energy training has been developed based on role playing, to maximize participant engagement and interaction. This guidebook aims to enable practitioners to conduct role-playing training in gender and energy and demonstrate the World Bank Group (WBG) gender tag methodology applied to International Bank for Reconstruction and Development and International Development Association (IBRD and IDA) projects.
... See More + It presents the methodology and training material and provides a number of case studies. Training material consists of four types of cards - gender gaps, gender data, case studies, and character profiles - and is easily customizable and can be applied to other case studies, in other sectors as well.
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Esta publicación fue elaborada como parte del componente de Gestión del Conocimiento del Programa de Simplificación Tributaria en Latinoamérica y el Caribe (LACTAX).
... See More + El informe identifica y analiza las mejores prácticas en los servicios de defensa al contribuyente en México, Perú y Colombia, enfocándose en aquellas que facilitan el cumplimiento de las obligaciones fiscales y mejoran las relaciones entre las Autoridades Tributarias y los contribuyentes. Además, se establece la importancia de estos organismos en la conformación de sistemas tributarios justos, particularmente para las MIPYMEs.
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