Title: Growth Challenges in Latin America: What is Unique About the Region?
Abstract: Growth patterns in Latin America over the last half century can best be described as extremely volatile. A period of relatively rapid economic growth that ran from the 1950s to the 1970s ended in deep economic and financial crises in the early 1980s and caused the region’s pace of economic activity to collapse. As is well known, the 1980s is characterized as the lost decade for Latin America. The early 1990s brought economic recovery, but debt and financial crises once again plagued the region during the second half of the decade and the early 2000s. Continuing with its rollercoaster-like behavior, the region’s economic growth accelerated in the mid-2000s, driven by favorable external conditions that included a sharp improvement in the region’s terms of trade. This time, the recovery included the entire region. Indeed, in the period 2003-2007, all Latin American countries experienced consistent positive growth. Five years of region-wide, positive growth were an achievement not seen since the 1970s. However, just as hopes were mounting about the region’s capability for sustained growth, the deep financial crisis that started in industrial countries in 2008 expanded to emerging markets and damaged Latin America’s growth prospects. Now, once optimistic 2009 growth rates for the Latin American and Caribbean region have been revised, from 3.2% forecasted by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in October 2008 to 1.1% in March 2009 and, more recently, down to -1.5% in April 2009.
Publication Year: 2009
Publication Date: 2009-01-01
Language: en
Type: article
Indexed In: ['crossref']
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