J. Humberto López

Poverty reduction and growth : virtuous and vicious circles

Poverty Reduction and Growth is about the existence of these vicious circles in Latin America and the Caribbean about the ways and means to convert them into virtuous circles in which poverty reduction and high growth reinforce each other. This publication is organized as follows: Chapter 1: From vicious to virtuous circle; Chapter 2: Dimensions of well-being, channels to growth; Chapter 3: How did we get here? Chapter 4: The relative roles of growth and inequality for poverty reduction; Chapter 5: Pro-poor growth in Latin America; Chapter 6: Does poverty matter for growth? Chapter 7: Subnational dimensions of growth and poverty; Chapter 8: Microdeterminants of incomes: labor markets, poverty, and traps?; and Chapter 9: Breaking the cycle of underinvestment in human capital in Latin America.

A Normal Relationship? Poverty, Growth, and Inequality

Using a large cross-country income distribution dataset spanning close to 800 country-year observations from industrial and developing countries, the authors show that the size distribution of per capita income is well approximated empirically by a lognormal density. The null hypothesis that per capita income follows a lognormal distribution cannot be rejected-although the same hypothesis is unambiguously rejected when applied to per capita consumption. The authors show that lognormality of per capita income has important implications for the relative roles of income growth and inequality changes in poverty reduction. When poverty reduction is the overriding policy objective, poorer and relatively equal countries may be willing to tolerate modest increases in income inequality in exchange for faster growth-more so than richer and highly unequal countries.

Pro-growth, pro-poor : is there a tradeoff?

Is a pro-growth strategy always the best pro-poor strategy? To address this issue, the author provides an empirical evaluation of the impact of a series of pro-growth policies on inequality and headcount poverty. He relies on a large macroeconomic data set and estimate dynamic panel models that allows him to differentiate between the short- and long-run impacts of the policies under consideration on growth, inequality, and poverty. The authors findings indicate that regardless of their impact on inequality, pro-growth policies lead to lower poverty levels in the long run. However, he also finds evidence indicating that some of these policies may lead to higher inequality and, under plausible assumptions for the distribution of income, to higher poverty levels in the short run. These findings would justify the adoption of a pro-growth policy package as the center of any poverty reduction strategy, together with pro-poor measures that complement such a package by offsetting potential short-run increases in poverty.

Inequality in Latin America : determinants and consequences

Latin America is together with Sub-Saharan Africa the most unequal region of the world. This paper documents recent inequality trends in the Latin American region, going beyond traditional measures of income inequality. The paper also reviews some of the explanations that have been put forward to understand the current situation, and discusses why reducing income inequality should be an important policy priority. In particular, the authors discuss channels through which inequality can affect growth and output volatility. On the whole, the analysis suggests a two-pronged approach to reduce inequality in the region that combines policies aimed at improving the distribution of assets (especially education) with elements aimed at improving the capacity of the state to redistribute income through taxes and transfers.

The power of the ADF test

Abstract The asymptotic distribution of the Dickey-Fuller test is derived under the alternative hypothesis when MA error terms are present in the data. It is found that the asymptotic t statistic is not affected by the distance between the alternative and the null hypothesis and what is relevant is the ratio of the sample size ( T ) to the order of the autoregression ( m ).

Sectorial Macroeconomic Interdependencies : Evidence for Latin America, East Asia and Europe

This paper analyzes common economic patterns across countries and economic sectors in Latin America, East Asia and Europe for the period 1970-94 by means of an error-components model that decomposes real value added growth in each country into common international effects, sector-specific effects and country-specific effects. We find significant comovements in the European and East Asian samples. In the Latin American sample, however, we find country-specific components to be more important than common patterns. These results are robust to different sub-sample time spans and different sub-sample country groups.

Getting the Most Out of Free Trade Agreements in Central America

Peace came accompanied not only by the end to the human drama associated with the conflicts, but also by a significant economic dividend, a much needed development in a region where per capita gross domestic product (GDP) had stagnated between 1970 and 1990 and where two countries (El Salvador and Nicaragua) had been experiencing negative average growth rates for more than two decades. The social dimension of the dismal growth performance is well captured in the poverty rates. According to World Bank statistics, in the first half of the 1990s the average poverty rate in the region was close to 60 percent in countries such as Honduras and Nicaragua; almost three-quarters of the population lived on less than US

How Long is the Long Run?: A Dynamic Analysis of the Spanish Business Cycle

4 a day. Several lessons emerge from getting the most out of free trade agreements (FTAs) in Central America, but the author will like to stress three. First, Central America should not take the positive results of signed FTAs as a given. Second, trade promotion needs to be complemented by a strong focus on the poor. In some cases, this focus is because of the challenges brought by additional external competition, which may negatively affect some industries or sectors. Third, is the need for more competitive markets? Although many of us tend to think about the benefits of growth in terms of quantities (that is, more exports, more employment, and increased access to goods) many of the welfare effects of FTAs are transmitted through prices (such as lower prices for imported goods).

Domestic, Foreign or Common Shocks?

This paper studies the sources of Spanish business cycles. It assumes that Spanish output is affected by two types of shocks. The first one has permanent long-run effects on output and it is identified as a supply shock. The second one has only transitory effects on output and it is identified as a demand shock. Spain seems to have long business cycles, of about 15 years. As restrictive demand policies to control the inflation rate could prove painful and disappointing, supply side policies aimed at reducing rigidities in the product and labor market would be a better way to achieve the same objective.

Does the Investment Climate Matter? Microeconomic Foundations of Growth in Latin America

A stochastic general equilibrium model of the world economy is used to analyze the origin of international business cycles using data for Germany, Japan and the United States. The findings indicate that after 1973, common shocks play a major role in accounting for similarities in output fluctuations. However, trade interdependencies with the United States may have also played a very important role; more than 20 percent of output fluctuations of the German and Japanese economies could have been imported from the United States.