Promoting Silicon Valleys In Latin America

The spectacular economic performance of China, East Asia and India during the last ten years has ignited some profound changes in the world economy. The share of global demand, investments, trade and production of the traditional industrialized powers, the US, Europe and Japan, has gradually yet continuously declined. This rise of China also has implications for Latin America. On the one hand, booming Chinese demand for raw materials and food has sustained the economic performance of Latin America during the last decade. On the other hand, the competitiveness of China and as a hub for advanced manufacturing is threatening Latin America's attempt to diversify its economy from its dependence on the export of natural resource-based goods. Most Latin American countries are not however waiting passively for their economies to become ever more reliant on high prices for food, minerals and oil. Leveraging the economic and political stability that they achieved during the last decades, many countries in the region, such as Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica and Uruguay, are attempting to capture the growing market for knowledge intensive products and services by breeding their own Silicon Valleys. This book discusses the promotion of ICT clusters in Latin America by analyzing the development of the Costa Rican cluster in particular, an often celebrated case of successful policy in the region. Costa Rica, a small country traditionally known for its coffee and wildlife, managed to build an information technology cluster within ten years, becoming the leading producer of ICT per capita in Latin America. Studying the Costa Rican case provides a solid starting point for understanding the challenges of building ICT clusters in Latin America.

The spectacular economic performance of China, East Asia and India during the last ten years has ignited some profound changes in the world economy. The share of global demand, investments, trade and production of the traditional industrialized powers, the US, Europe and Japan, has gradually yet continuously declined. This rise of China also has implications for Latin America. On the one hand, booming Chinese demand for raw materials and food has sustained the economic performance of Latin America during the last decade. On the other hand, the competitiveness of China and as a hub for advanced manufacturing is threatening Latin America’s attempt to diversify its economy from its dependence on the export of natural resource-based goods. Most Latin American countries are not however waiting passively for their economies to become ever more reliant on high prices for food, minerals and oil. Leveraging the economic and political stability that they achieved during the last decades, many countries in the region, such as Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica and Uruguay, are attempting to capture the growing market for knowledge intensive products and services by breeding their own Silicon Valleys. This book discusses the promotion of ICT clusters in Latin America by analyzing the development of the Costa Rican cluster in particular, an often celebrated case of successful policy in the region. Costa Rica, a small country traditionally known for its coffee and wildlife, managed to build an information technology cluster within ten years, becoming the leading producer of ICT per capita in Latin America. Studying the Costa Rican case provides a solid starting point for understanding the challenges of building ICT clusters in Latin America.

How can countries in the underdeveloped world position themselves to take best advantage of the positive economic benefits of globalization? One avenue to success is the harnessing of foreign direct investment (FDI) in the “nontraditional” forms of the high-technology and service sectors, where an educated workforce is essential and the spillover effects to other sectors are potentially very beneficial. In this book, Roy Nelson compares efforts in three Latin American countries—Brazil, Chile, and Costa Rica—to attract nontraditional FDI and analyzes the reasons for their relative success or failure. As a further comparison, he uses the successes of FDI promotion in Ireland and Singapore to help refine the analysis. His study shows that two factors, in particular, are critical. First is the government’s autonomy from special interest groups, both domestic and foreign, arising from the level of political security enjoyed by government leaders. The second factor is the government’s ability to learn about prospective investors and the inducements that are most important to them—what he calls “transnational learning capacity.” Nelson draws lessons from his analysis for how governments might develop more effective strategies for attracting nontraditional FDI.

Using a combination of thorough research and practical examples, Strategy and Competitiveness in Latin American Markets explains how the concept of the sustainability frontier that the book develops resolves the long-running debate on whether sustainability requires trade-offs or not.

This brief text offers an unbiased reflection on debates about neoliberalism and its alternatives in Latin America with an emphasis on the institutional puzzle that underlies the region’s difficulties with democratization and development. In addition to providing an overview of this key element of the Latin American political economy, Peter Kingstone also advances the argument that both state-led and market-led solutions depend on effective institutions, but little is known about how and why they emerge. Kingstone offers a unique contribution by mapping out the problem of how to understand institutions, why they are created, and why Latin American ones limit democratic development. This timely and thorough update includes: A fresh discussion of the commodity boom in the region and the resulting "Golden Era" in Latin America; The recent explosion of social policy innovation and concerns about the durability of social reform after the boom; A discussion of the knowledge economy and the limits to economic growth, with case studies of successful examples of fostering innovation.

This report reviews the policy mix to support knowledge-based start-ups in six countries in Latin America, including Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Peru.

An insightful examination of the political and economic ties between China and Latin America from the 1950s to the present This book explores the impact of Chinese growth on Latin America since the early 2000s. Roughly twenty years ago, Chinese entrepreneurs headed to the Western Hemisphere in search of profits and commodities, specifically those that China lacked and that some Latin American countries held in abundance—copper, iron ore, crude oil, soybeans, and fish meal. Focusing largely on Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Costa Rica, Mexico, and Peru, Carol Wise traces the evolution of political and economic ties between China and these countries and analyzes how success has varied by sector, project, and country. She also assesses the costs and benefits of Latin America’s recent pivot toward Asia. Wise argues that while opportunities for closer economic integration with China are seemingly infinite, so are the risks, and contends that the best outcomes have stemmed from endeavors where the rule of law, regulatory oversight, and a clear strategy exist on the Latin American side.

A nuanced account from a user perspective of what it’s like to live in a datafied world. We live in a media-saturated society that increasingly transforms our experiences, relations, and identities into data others can analyze and monetize. Algorithms are key to this process, surveilling our most mundane practices, and to many, their control over our lives seems absolute. In Living with Algorithms, Ignacio Siles critically challenges this view by surveying user dynamics in the global south across three algorithmic platforms—Netflix, Spotify, and TikTok—and finds, surprisingly, a more balanced relationship. Drawing on a wealth of empirical evidence that privileges the user over the corporate, Siles examines the personal relationships that have formed between users and algorithms as Latin Americans have integrated these systems into the structures of everyday life, enacted them ritually, participated in public with and through them, and thwarted them. Sometimes users follow algorithms, Siles finds, and sometimes users resist them. At times, users do both. Agency lies in the navigation of the spaces in-between. By analyzing what we do with algorithms rather than what algorithms do to us, Living with Algorithms clarifies the debate over the future of datafication and whether we have a say in its development. Concentrating on an understudied region of the global south, the book provides a new perspective on the commonalities and differences among users within a global ecology of technologies.