Francesc Saigí,[i] Imma Alberch,[ii] and Juan Blyde[iii] Over the past year, the COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the adoption of new telemedicine services to improve people’s health. Likewise, social distancing measures, the lack of experts, and the large extensions of countries of Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) drove the adoption of international … [Read more...] about Promoting international telemedicine in Latin America
Juan Blyde
Juan S. Blyde is Lead Economist in the Integration and Trade Sector of the Inter-American Development Bank. He specializes in researching areas such as the relationship between trade and firm productivity, trade and transportation costs, and international value chains. Juan has a PhD in economics from the University of Colorado at Boulder and a BA in economics from the Andrés Bello Catholic University (Venezuela). Before joining the IDB, he worked as an economist in the Economic Advisory Office of the Venezuelan Congress. Juan's research has been published in different academic journals such as the Journal of International Economics, Review of International Economics, International Economic Journal and Review of World Economics, among others.
Why Are Shipping Costs Increasing? What US Import Data Tell Us
The cost of shipping goods has risen rapidly during the past 18 months. The average freight rate of US imports, based on cargo value, has gained a full percentage point relative to pre-pandemic levels (see Figure 1).[1] The average freight cost of a global 40-foot container has increased more than five times since the pandemic started, with routes such as Shanghai-to-Los … [Read more...] about Why Are Shipping Costs Increasing? What US Import Data Tell Us
Global Value Chains and the Environment in a post-COVID World
Many predictions have floated about the future of global value chains (GVC), or the separation of production in stages across borders, in a post-COVID19 world. They include some degree of reshoring by which global lead firms bring back to their home country the production of intermediate inputs initially offshored to other countries. Other predictions include a higher degree of … [Read more...] about Global Value Chains and the Environment in a post-COVID World
Pandemics: the time has come for Latin America to export telemedicine services
One of the problems associated with pandemics, like COVID-19, is that as individuals rush to hospitals, the national health care system can get overloaded beyond its capacity to treat people. A potential way to reduce the strain on the system is through telemedicine, the delivery of health care services from one site to another via electronic communications, often through a … [Read more...] about Pandemics: the time has come for Latin America to export telemedicine services
Why fragmented integration hampers fragmented international production
When world trade consisted mostly of final goods or inputs used only in goods for domestic final demand, the relationship between trade agreements and trade flows was relatively simple: sign an agreement with another country and the trade flows between the two nations would most likely increase, end of story. With the emergence of global value chains, however, the story is not … [Read more...] about Why fragmented integration hampers fragmented international production