scholarly journals Sorry it took me so long: Latin America and rapid governments’ response to COVID-19

2020 ◽  
Vol 56 (2) ◽  
pp. 116-130
Author(s):  
Ian Rebouças Batista ◽  
Amanda Domingos ◽  
Rodrigo Lins
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
Social Isolation ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
Small Sample ◽  
Gdp Per Capita ◽  
Institutional Variables ◽  
Per Capita ◽  
Latin American Countries

When facing the COVID-19 pandemic, what was key to governments’ response velocity throughout Latin America? The region had more information on what to do to prevent the disease from spreading itself and social isolation was the most recommended measure to avoid contamination. Still, Latin American countries varied greatly on how fast they adopted strict social isolation measures. We deploy an explanatory work on which institutional designs collaborates with higher delay in governments’ adoption of these measures. Among the institutional variables considered, we find that our variable of interest (delay) correlates strongly and positively with democracy, negatively with concentration of power, and positively with GDP per capita. These might suggest that autocrats faced less institutional and moral constraints to act, while democratic leaders dealing with pluralism and accountability faced higher costs to implement such measures. Due to the small sample, we next investigate  ’ experience looking for examples for the found correlations.Keywords: Government’s delay; COVID-19; Political Institutions

scholarly journals COVID-19 Mortality Rate and Its Incidence in Latin America: Dependence on Demographic and Economic Variables

2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (13) ◽  
pp. 6900
Author(s):  
Javier Cifuentes-Faura
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
Mortality Rate ◽  
Population Density ◽  
Life Expectancy ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Positive Influence ◽  
Death Rates ◽  
Per Capita ◽  
Latin American Countries ◽  
Quality Infrastructure

The pandemic caused by COVID-19 has left millions infected and dead around the world, with Latin America being one of the most affected areas. In this work, we have sought to determine, by means of a multiple regression analysis and a study of correlations, the influence of population density, life expectancy, and proportion of the population in vulnerable employment, together with GDP per capita, on the mortality rate due to COVID-19 in Latin American countries. The results indicated that countries with higher population density had lower numbers of deaths. Population in vulnerable employment and GDP showed a positive influence, while life expectancy did not appear to significantly affect the number of COVID-19 deaths. In addition, the influence of these variables on the number of confirmed cases of COVID-19 was analyzed. It can be concluded that the lack of resources can be a major burden for the vulnerable population in combating COVID-19 and that population density can ensure better designed institutions and quality infrastructure to achieve social distancing and, together with effective measures, lower death rates.

scholarly journals Political Institutions and Street Protests in Latin America

2011 ◽  
Vol 55 (3) ◽  
pp. 340-365 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fabiana Machado ◽  
Carlos Scartascini ◽  
Mariano Tommasi
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
Political Process ◽  
The Political ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Country Level ◽  
Level Information ◽  
Alternative Means ◽  
Latin American Countries

In this article, the authors argue that where institutions are strong, actors are more likely to participate in the political process through institutionalized arenas, while where they are weak, protests and other unconventional means of participation become more appealing. The authors explore this relationship empirically by combining country-level measures of institutional strength with individual-level information on protest participation in seventeen Latin American countries. The authors find evidence that weaker political institutions are associated with a higher propensity to use alternative means for expressing preferences, that is, to protest.

Changing Labour Market Indicators and the Rate of Economic Growth in Latin America during the 2000s

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Guillermo Cruces ◽  
Gary S. Fields ◽  
David Jaume ◽  
Mariana Viollaz
Keyword(s):  
Labour Market ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Growth Rates ◽  
General Pattern ◽  
Gdp Per Capita ◽  
International Crisis ◽  
Poverty And Inequality ◽  
Latin American Region ◽  
Per Capita ◽  
Latin American Countries

The Latin American region exhibited an increase in gross domestic product per capita during the 2000s, an improvement in all employment and earnings indicators, and poverty and inequality reductions. On a country-by-country basis, all Latin American countries exhibited positive GDP per capita growth rates during the 2000s. Most countries experienced substantial improvements in labour market conditions over the period, Honduras being the only exception to this general pattern. Finally, the growth rates of most countries in the region were negatively affected by the international crisis of 2008, which also affected several labour market indicators in the worsening direction. Most labour market indicators had fully or partially recovered by 2012–13.

scholarly journals Distributive Implications of Fertility Changes in Latin America

2016 ◽  
Vol 2016 ◽  
pp. 1-11 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicolás Badaracco ◽  
Leonardo Gasparini ◽  
Mariana Marchionni
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Main Channel ◽  
Income Poverty ◽  
Household Surveys ◽  
Fertility Rates ◽  
Poverty And Inequality ◽  
Lower Fertility ◽  
Per Capita ◽  
Latin American Countries

Fertility rates significantly fell over the last decades in Latin America. In order to assess the extent to which these changes contributed to the observed reduction in income poverty and inequality, we apply microeconometric decomposition to microdata from national household surveys from seven Latin American countries. We find that changes in fertility rates were associated with a nonnegligible reduction in inequality and poverty in the region. The main channel was straightforward: lower fertility implied smaller families and hence larger per capita incomes. Lower fertility also fostered labor force participation, especially among women, which contributed to the reduction of poverty and inequality in most countries, although the size of this effect was smaller.

scholarly journals Capital Formation in Machinery in Latin America, 1890-1930

2009 ◽  
Vol 69 (4) ◽  
pp. 928-950 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xavier Tafunell
Keyword(s):  
Economic Growth ◽  
Latin America ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Rapid Growth ◽  
Capital Formation ◽  
Annual Series ◽  
Per Capita ◽  
Latin American Countries

Investment in machinery is a key component in the analysis of long-term economic growth during the spread of industrialization. This article offers consistent annual series on the magnitude of machinery imports per capita into all Latin American countries for the period 1890-1930. Analysis of these series shows that machinery imports diverged across countries from 1890 through 1913. After 1913 a number of the more backward countries experienced rapid growth in machinery imports. These large differences in machinery investment contributed to unequal development across the Latin American countries.

scholarly journals Human macroecology, energy use scaling, and the sustainability of cities: A look at Latin America

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vanessa Weinberger ◽  
Joseph Robert Burger
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
Co2 Emissions ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Renewable Resources ◽  
Fossil Fuels ◽  
Energy Use ◽  
Scaling Analysis ◽  
Modern Cities ◽  
Per Capita ◽  
Latin American Countries

We take a human macroecological approach using energy as a fundamental currency to quantify the emergence and future sustainability of urban societies globally with a special look at Latin America. Energetic scaling analysis showed most modern humans in cities in Latin America and elsewhere live at densities of ~10,000 ind/km2, ~4 orders of magnitude greater than our hunter-gatherer ancestors (<1 ind/km2). Meanwhile, modern cities consume ~10,000 watts mostly in the form of extra-metabolic (e.g., fossil fuels), ~2 orders of magnitude greater than hunter-gatherer biological metabolism (~120 watts). Further analysis of World Bank data across and within nations over time showed per capita Gross Domestic Product (GDP), energy use, and CO2 emissions are lowest in predominantly rural countries, increase in urbanizing countries and are greatest in the most urban countries. For the same level of urbanization, Latin American countries show lower per capita GDP, energy use, and CO2 emissions than global averages. These trends coincide with changes in employment with rural countries employed largely in resource-extraction sectors and highly urbanized nations in service economies. Latin American countries have higher employment in resource sectors compared to most urban countries. Increasing energy use, especially fossil fuel use, underlies urbanization and changes in economic lifestyle. However, these trends cannot continue indefinitely. Latin America, because of its rich renewable and non-renewable resources, may be spared from future uncertainties inherent to complex human-nature systems including from climate change, energy scarcity, pandemics, migration, and trade agreements if it chooses to: 1) rapidly transition to renewable powered economies, and 2) reduce population and economy size within local and regional renewable biocapacities. A rapid cultural evolution is of the essence.

Club convergence in Latin America

2015 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Victor Martin ◽  
Guillermo Vazquez
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Capita Income ◽  
Per Capita Income ◽  
Club Convergence ◽  
Convergence Test ◽  
Per Capita ◽  
Transition Modeling ◽  
Latin American Countries

AbstractThis paper assesses the convergence in per capita income of a group of 18 Latin American countries over the period 1950–2008. We employ a novel regression based convergence test proposed by (Phillips, P. C. B., and D. Sul. 2007. “Transition Modeling and Econometric Convergence Tests.”

scholarly journals Gender Wage Gap: Within and Across Borders

2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 74-83
Author(s):  
Orkideh Gharehgozli ◽  
Vidya Atal
Keyword(s):  
Latin American ◽  
Wage Inequality ◽  
Wage Differential ◽  
Gender Wage Gap ◽  
Wage Gap ◽  
Wage Distribution ◽  
Gdp Per Capita ◽  
Part Time ◽  
Per Capita ◽  
Latin American Countries

Abstract This paper aims to explore gender wage differential at the wage distribution decile level. We define “real wage” with one of the most tangible adjustment measures, “Big Mac Index”. We study wages equivalent to the number of Big Mac burgers (per day) of men and women belonging to different wage distribution deciles for 21 countries and for the priod of 2000 to 2013. We find that, across countries, the higher the GDP per capita, the larger the gender wage gap. The “wealthy” European countries have the lowest female to male wage ratio. High female participation in part-time jobs may be a reason for that. Meanwhile, Latin American countries with the lowest GDP per capita in our study have the highest ratio of female to male wages. As expected, we also find that within a country, the higher the wage decile, the larger the gender wage inequality.

scholarly journals ¿ES PROCÍCLICA LA CONVERGENCIA DEL CRECIMIENTO ECONÓMICO DE AMÉRICA LATINA?

2019 ◽  
Vol 78 (307) ◽  
pp. 33
Author(s):  
María Isabel Osorio Caballero
Keyword(s):  
Latin American ◽  
Gdp Per Capita ◽  
Regional Convergence ◽  
Conditional Convergence ◽  
Growth Convergence ◽  
Per Capita ◽  
Γ Convergence ◽  
America Latina ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Latin American Countries

<p align="center"><strong>RESUMEN</strong></p><p>Este trabajo examina la hipótesis de convergencia condicional del producto interno bruto (PIB) per cápita estableciendo una vinculación positiva con la tasa de crecimiento de un panel de 18 países de América Latina durante 1990-2015. Se emplea un análisis de β-convergencia, σ-convergencia y γ-convergencia. Además, para identificar la heterogeneidad espacial se analizan las relaciones entre unidades territoriales vecinas y el nivel de producto empleando el estadístico I de Moran. En general, todos los indicadores muestran la existencia de una senda de convergencia regional, con elevada β-convergencia condicional, una reducción en la dispersión de los ingresos per cápita y una menor movilidad en el <em>ranking</em> de la posición de los países.</p><p align="center"> </p><p align="center"><strong>IS LATIN AMERICA’S ECONOMIC GROWTH CONVERGENCE PROCYCLICAL?</strong></p><p align="center"><strong>ABSTRACT</strong></p>This paper looks at the hypothesis of conditional convergence of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita for a set of eighteen Latin American countries establishing a positive link with the growth rate of those economies. To that purpose, β-convergence, σ-convergence and γ-convergence analyses are conducted. Furthermore, with the aim of identifying spatial heterogeneity the relationship among neighbor territorial units and product levels are studied applying the I Moran statistics. By and large, a regional convergence path with high conditional β-convergence, a lower dispersion of per capita incomes and a lesser mobility of countries along the ranking are shown to exist.

Working-Class Legislators and Perceptions of Representation in Latin America

2019 ◽  
Vol 72 (4) ◽  
pp. 910-928 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tiffany D. Barnes ◽  
Gregory W. Saxton
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
Working Class ◽  
Multilevel Analysis ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
Legislative Performance ◽  
Latin American Countries

How does the near-exclusion of working-class citizens from legislatures affect citizens’ perceptions of representation? We argue that when groups of people are continually denied access to representation, citizens are less likely to believe that their interests are represented by the legislature. By contrast, more inclusive institutions that incorporate members of the working class foster support for representative bodies. Using a multilevel analysis of eighteen Latin American countries—a region plagued by disapproval of and disenchantment with representation—we find that greater inclusion of the working class is associated with better evaluations of legislative performance. These findings have important implications for strengthening democracy in Latin America, as they indicate that more diverse political institutions may be key to deepening citizens’ attachments to representative bodies.

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