Latin America Econ Pol Challen

3 Credits · Level: Graduate

Latin America Economic Policy Challenges. The course will go over the most important economic policy challenges faced by Latin American and Caribbean countries in the last 25 years. The course will focus on macroeconomic, social, and microeconomic and structural policy challenges reviewing the main analytical tools used to understand these problems as well as regional data and case studies. The first section will discuss the main hypotheses that explain the mediocre growth performance of the region, its multiple financial and debt crises, how different countries handled the volatility of commodity price and its relationship with the international financial institutions. In the second section we will focus on the evolution of the main social indicators such as poverty, income distribution, education and health and analyze the different policies implemented to improve living conditions of the most vulnerable groups in society. We will focus the discussion on how to design public policies to address these challenges. Finally, the course will focus on the main microstructural challenges and policies. We will start with a broad discussion on the evolution of the participation of the public sector in different economic activities and the effects of privatization processes, the effects of different trade policies implemented in the region and the design of appropriate mitigation and adaption policies to climate change. Although the course will focus on data and case studies from Latin America and the Caribbean, the analytical and policy design discussions are relevant for any developing and emerging economy.