Latin America 2018 2019

The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic has generated a health, human and economic crisis without precedent in the past century. The region has responded rapidly, adopting packages of fiscal measures of diverse magnitude and scope. In this context, fiscal policy must play a key role in mitigating the human and economic impact in the short term, while also continuing to provide the impulse for achieving sustainable and inclusive growth in a post-COVID-19 world. As well as analysing the fiscal policy challenges of the current crisis, the Fiscal Panorama of Latin America and the Caribbean, 2020 provides a broad overview of the problems of tax evasion in the region. It looks at the challenges of measuring tax evasion and the measures the countries are taking to tackle it. It also compares the functional allocation of public expenditure in the countries of the region, as a factor that has implications for the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals.

A comprehensive, timely, and entertaining account of the political, cultural, and economic dynamics of more than thirty discrete countries of the Western Hemisphere.

This publication outlines the region’s economic performance in 2018 and analyses trends in the early months of 2019, as well as the outlook for the rest of the year. It examines the external and domestic factors that have influenced the region’s economic performance, analyses the characteristics of growth, prices and the labour market, and draws attention to some of the macroeconomic policy challenges of the prevailing external conditions, amid mounting uncertainty stemming mainly from political factors. It analyses the dynamics of investment and its determinants, with a view to identifying the different variables on which public policy can act to influence the trajectory of investment.

Fiscal Panorama of Latin America and the Caribbean, 2019 examines the role of tax policy as a tool for driving progress towards achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals. One way to strengthen collection is to address the challenges of taxing the rapidly growing digital economy. Tax policy can also be used to shift production and consumption patterns to encourage decarbonization of the economy and support improvements in public health. Lastly, the document analyses the constraints on domestic resource mobilization caused by fiscal incentives and how, effectively geared towards investment, these incentives could instead foster sustainable and inclusive development.

Though still a relatively young field, the study of Latin American environmental history is blossoming, as the contributions to this definitive volume demonstrate. Bringing together thirteen leading experts on the region, A Living Past synthesizes a wide range of scholarship to offer new perspectives on environmental change in Latin America and the Spanish Caribbean since the nineteenth century. Each chapter provides insightful, up-to-date syntheses of current scholarship on critical countries and ecosystems (including Brazil, Mexico, the Caribbean, the tropical Andes, and tropical forests) and such cross-cutting themes as agriculture, conservation, mining, ranching, science, and urbanization. Together, these studies provide valuable historical contexts for making sense of contemporary environmental challenges facing the region.

The volume takes a broad view of recent social, political, and economic developments in Latin America. It contains six essays, focused on salient and cross-cutting themes, that try to construct a thread or narrative about the highly diverse region, highlighting its main idiosyncrasies and analyzing where it might be headed in coming years. While the essays recognize considerable advances, they also point out setbacks and missed opportunities that have stood in the way of sustained progress. Strengthening state capacity emerges as a significant challenge.

Latin America and the Caribbean needs an ambitious and comprehensive investment agenda to embark on a stronger and more sustainable development trajectory. The 16th edition of the Latin American Economic Outlook proposes ways to make this possible through co-ordinated actions by policy makers, the private sector and international partners.