ES EN
Menu Menú

Publications

Publicaciones

Search Publications

Buscar publicaciones

Filters Filtro de búsqueda

to a

clear selection Quitar los filtros

none

Article Artículo

Economic Growth

Globalization and Trade

Latin America and the Caribbean

What Do Latin American Countries Stand to Gain from the TPP?

A new CEPR paper by economist David Rosnick examines the impact that the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) – a trade and investment agreement, modeled on NAFTA – could be expected to have on U.S. wages.  The TPP, which is currently being negotiated by 12 countries in Latin America, Asia, North America – as well as by Australia and New Zealand – would result in a net lowering of wages for most U.S. workers, as the inequality effect of the increased trade would outsize the miniscule economic growth projections associated with it. Latin American governments involved in TPP negotiations include Chile, Mexico and Peru, all of which already have NAFTA-style trade and investment arrangements with the U.S.

Economic growth and job creation have historically been promoted as key incentives for why countries should rush to enact such so-called “free trade” agreements. NAFTA, for example, was touted as offering tremendous economic potential to Mexico, with predictions that the country would become a “First World” nation. But Mexico’s growth – stagnant since the neoliberal era that began in the 1980’s – did not pick up following NAFTA’s implementation in 1994. As CEPR Co-Director Mark Weisbrot and then-Research Associate Rebecca Ray noted in a paper last year:

Mexico’s economic growth since 2000 has not improved over that of the long-term failure of the previous two decades.  Its average annual per capita growth of 0.9 percent for 2000-2011 is about the same as the 0.8 percent annual rate from 1980 to 2000, and a small fraction of the 3.7 percent rate of the pre-2000 era.  

Mexico’s economy since 2000 has also performed very badly as compared with the rest of Latin America.  Its annual growth of GDP per person is less than half of the growth experienced by the rest of the region.

The impact on Mexico from the global recession – caused by the collapse of the U.S. housing bubble and bubbles in European countries – has been significant, and negative. Mexico, whose exports to the U.S. accounted for 21 percent of its GDP in 2007, suffered the worst output loss -- 9.4 percent of GDP -- in Latin America during the 2008-2009 recession. Although Mexico's growth was good in the three years of recovery since its recession, inspiring a spate of articles in the business press with high praise and hopes that 30 years of economic sacrifice had finally paid off, the economy shrank in the second quarter of this year and projections for 2013 have now been halved to a meager 1.8 percent growth.

CEPR / September 20, 2013

Article Artículo

The Kids versus Seniors Line Doesn't Fit the Facts

A popular line of argument in Washington policy circles is that spending on seniors is crowding out spending on our kids. In this story we would be able to pay for good schools, early childhood education and daycare, and health care and child nutrition if only grandma and grandpa weren't sucking away all the money for their Social Security and Medicare. The remedy for these folks is to cut Social Security and Medicare and tell our seniors that they will have to get by on less.

While there is tons of money behind this argument (e.g. the myriad of Peter Peterson funded groups, the Washington Post news and editorial sections, and most of the rest of the elite punditry), it doesn't fit the data. The idea that there is some fixed sum available to support social welfareprograms, and it will either go to kids or to seniors, has no basis in reality. The share of GDP going to support social spending of various types has increased substantially over the post-World War II era. So this sum clearly has not been fixed in the United States.

At the federal level, Social Security and other forms of social spending accounted for less than 5 percent of GDP in 1950. Today they account for more than 12 percent. It's not clear why anyone would think that this sum is fixed for all eternity. (It's also worth noting that much of our spending on health care is wasted on excessive payments to doctors, drug companies, insurers, and other health care providers. It is seriously misleading to treat this waste as spending on the elderly.)

We get an even stronger story if we look at the situation across countries. It turns out that countries that spend a larger share of their GDP supporting their seniors also spend a larger share of their income supporting the young. The chart below shows spending per kid and spending per senior for the OECD countries, both divided by per capita income.

CEPR / September 19, 2013

Article Artículo

Health and Social Programs

CBO Says We Have a Tax Problem, Not a Spending Problem

Yesterday the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released its 2013 Long-Term Budget Outlook, and it has some great news. Specifically, CBO is predicting substantially lower health care spending this year and 25 years into the future. 

CBO states that it "now projects that federal spending for major health care programs would equal 8.0 percent of GDP in 2038 under current law, down from the previous projection of 8.7 percent." Specifically, "4.9 percent of GDP would be devoted to spending on Medicare... and 3.2 percent would be spent on Medicaid, CHIP, and the exchange subsidies."

cepr-blog-cbo-09-2013

CEPR and Nicole Woo / September 18, 2013

Article Artículo

Economic Growth

Globalization and Trade

Latin America and the Caribbean

World

You Probably Didn’t Hear that Venezuela Was Again Ranked the Happiest Country in South America

The U.N. Sustainable Development Solutions Network released its World Happiness Report for 2013 last week. Following up on the first such report, released last year, the U.N. says that the 2013 edition

delves in more detail into the analysis of the global happiness data, examining trends over time and breaking down each country’s score into its component parts, so that citizens and policy makers can understand their country’s ranking. It also draws connections to other major initiatives to measure well-being, including those conducted by the OECD and UNDP’s Human Development Report…

The World Happiness Report, as with similar such studies as the Happy Planet Index is in part a response to perceived shortcomings with traditional economic and social measures such as growth, poverty rates, employment, education, life expectancy and other indicators.

While U.S. media coverage of the report was not overwhelming, there was some. The report was also covered in numerous international outlets in countries throughout Europe, in Asia, Africa and Australia and New Zealand, among others. CNN noted that 

“On a regional basis, by far the largest gains in life evaluations in terms of the prevalence and size of the increases have been in Latin America and the Caribbean, and in Sub-Saharan Africa", the report said. Reduced levels of corruption also contributed to the rise.

But CNN neglected to mention that Venezuela ranked first – again – among South American nations as happiest.

CEPR / September 17, 2013

Article Artículo

Haiti

Latin America and the Caribbean

World

Another UN Soldier Accused of Rape in Haiti

The United Nations mission in Haiti, already facing a credibility crisis over its introduction of cholera, is facing new allegations that one of its troops raped an 18-year old woman this past weekend in the town of Leogane, according to police inspector Wilson Hippolite. In an e-mailed statement, the U.N. acknowledged that they “are aware of the allegations made against a military staff member” and noted that a “preliminary investigation has been launched to determine the facts of the case.”

According to Metropole Haiti, the alleged assault occurred off National Highway #2 on Saturday when the 18-year old woman was approached by a Sri Lankan U.N. military officer. A Justice of the Peace, conducting a preliminary investigation, visited the site of the alleged assault on Sunday and found a used condom. Further tests are being conducted, according to the report. The accused has been moved to a different MINUSTAH base in another part of the country as the investigation unfolds. As of July 30, Sri Lanka had over 860 troops stationed in Haiti, making it the third largest troop contributing country to the 9 year-old mission.

This is but the latest in a string of sexual abuse scandals that have plagued the U.N. mission in Haiti. And it’s not the first time Sri Lankan troops have been involved; in 2007 over 100 Sri Lankan members of MINUSTAH were repatriated after allegations of “transactional sex with underage girls.” In fact, according to the U.N. Conduct and Discipline Unit, there have been 78 allegations of sexual abuse and exploitation by members of MINUSTAH reported in just the last 7 years.

Jake Johnston / September 17, 2013