Latin America and the Caribbean has a huge opportunity in innovative and sustainable export-driven agriculture. But that path is more difficult for small-scale producers. Small farms, many of them family owned, don't have the funds to invest in the research and development, the equipment and infrastructure, and the information gathering needed to penetrate high value niche food … [Read more...] about A Honey Exporter Reveals the Potential of Innovative Cooperatives
Microeconomics and Competitiveness
What Can City Governments in Latin America Do to Improve Public Health?
The place where somebody lives matters for their physical well-being. Even within the same country, residents of different cities can have on average better or worse health, partly due to policies their city governments have adopted. Consider life expectancy in Latin America. The gap between the highest and lowest life expectancies in urban areas of Argentina, Chile, … [Read more...] about What Can City Governments in Latin America Do to Improve Public Health?
When Insurance for Small Businesses Provides Broad Social Gains
Since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, various studies have examined how large domestic and multinational firms respond to economic shocks, including health-related ones. But there has been less focus on how family-operated micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) modify their business decisions when faced with such disruptions. Similarly, relatively little … [Read more...] about When Insurance for Small Businesses Provides Broad Social Gains
Trust: An Obstacle and an Opportunity for Digital Transformation
It is well understood that digital transformation can build trust between citizens and the state. It improves service delivery, transparency, and the efficiency of public expenditure—all of which contributes to greater citizen trust in government. But trust is also critical to allowing the process of digital transformation to occur in the first place, and Latin America, the … [Read more...] about Trust: An Obstacle and an Opportunity for Digital Transformation
The Promise of Modern Agriculture for Faster and More Inclusive Growth
The path from agriculture to manufacturing and other high-productivity sectors was long considered the true way to structural transformation and development. By contrast, agriculture was viewed as a technologically backwards sector, with minimal innovation and little capacity to grow national income. That view, however, no longer holds. While there is still plenty of … [Read more...] about The Promise of Modern Agriculture for Faster and More Inclusive Growth