At the end of the third quarter, the growth forecast for Latin America and the Caribbean was an estimated -0.6% for 2016. For the first time since 1982-83, the region is expected to post two consecutive years of negative growth. However, looking beyond the numbers there is some good news in this latest report. To begin with, things looked considerably worse earlier in the … [Read more...] about Latin America’s Macroeconomic Update: Looking Up
Fighting Zika: The Need for Sustained But Flexible Messaging
Over the last year, newspapers and television stations in the Americas have reported hundreds of stories about the Zika epidemic. The media is flooded with news accounts of people suffering from temporary paralysis, infants with brain damage, and the fears the virus has unleashed, especially among pregnant women. Yet despite these accounts—and thousands of warnings by … [Read more...] about Fighting Zika: The Need for Sustained But Flexible Messaging
The Spinning Wheel of Economic Analysis
“The wheel is come full circle,” wrote William Shakespeare and so it seems has the progress of economic ideas in the view of Augusto de la Torre, the Chief Economist for Latin America and the Caribbean at the World Bank. Economics is largely about supply and demand and the intersection of the two. But De la Torre, in an eminent career including stints as the president of … [Read more...] about The Spinning Wheel of Economic Analysis
Why Do Politicians Buy Votes?
Since the first exchange of a drachma for a vote in Athens more than two-and-a-half thousand years ago, politicians have practiced the well-honed, if crude, art of vote buying. Today their inducements range from liquor, gas and cash in the United States to cash, grain, and washing machines in large parts of Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean. Yet vote buying is not … [Read more...] about Why Do Politicians Buy Votes?
Democracy Does Not Cause Growth
Does democracy cause more economic prosperity and growth? This question dates back to Plato and Aristotle’s debate regarding which form of government brings more political and economic gain to society. However, after more than two millennia, there seems to be no clear consensus about whether democracy (in and of itself) delivers more economic growth than autocratic forms of … [Read more...] about Democracy Does Not Cause Growth