The Economics of Contemporary Latin America

摘要

The Economics of Contemporary Latin America delivers an in-depth and illuminating analysis of the origins of persistent barriers against economic development faced by generations in Latin America from colonial times to the 1990s. The authors identify the colonial legacy of excessive dependence on primary commodity exports, the four-decade protectionism of import-substitution industrialization, the Great Depression of the 1930s and the debt crisis of 1982 as major obstacles explaining why Latin American economies have not transitioned from a developing status to a developed status similar to that for their Northern neighbors. Authors use the findings from the colonial times to the 1990s to provide foundations for detailed analyses of Latin America's economic growth, poverty, income inequality and the continuing problem of populism by government leaders, during the twenty-first century. Although Latin America has made substantial progress towards economic development over the last thirty years of the twenty first century, Latin America is still far away from achieving economic development (p. 347). In the final chapter, the authors discuss policy options for economic development in Latin America "and the main challenges that lie ahead" (p. xvi).