Inter-American Development Bank

Based on the results of a two-year research process on how social and business organizations in Ibero-America achieve superior social performance, Seeking Success in Social Enterprise presents the most comprehensive and in-depth analysis of such practices ever undertaken in this region. This practitioner-oriented book also enriches the literature on organizational performance, social enterprise, and corporate social responsibility. It aims to enable social and business leaders to gain a greater understanding of how to achieve high performance in terms of social value creation.

This pioneering volume provides a comprehensive overview of China’s economic policy and performance over recent decades and contrasts them with the Latin American experience, opening new avenues for thinking about revitalizing development strategies in Latin America in the face of China’s successful development and reduction of poverty. This insightful report is a must-read for analysts, policymakers, and development practitioners, not only in Latin America and the Caribbean, but wherever China’s presence is being felt.

This study analyzes how the workings of the policymaking process affect the quality of policy outcomes. It looks beyond a purely technocratic approach, arguing that the political and policymaking processes are inseparable. It offers a wide variety of examples and case studies, and yields useful insights for the design of effective policy reform.

Can local markets and clusters represent a powerful alternative to global markets? Do transnational corporations and global buyers enhance or undermine local firms’ upgrading and learning? Using original empirical evidence from several clusters in Latin America, Upgrading to Compete shows that both local and global dimensions matter at once.

Living with Debt focuses on how to manage sovereign debt safely and effectively. The report traces the history of sovereign borrowing in Latin America, releases a new data set on public debt, and analyzes debt’s evolution, highlighting the recent trend toward higher domestic debt and lower external borrowing. Also included is a detailed study of the costs of sovereign defaults, such as those that have affected Latin American countries in recent years.

The advance of democracy in Latin America over the past quarter century has helped ensure respect for fundamental political freedoms, civil liberties, and human rights. Democracies in Development highlights how an effective democracy is also essential for sustainable economic and social development. The book analyzes the effects of institutions on democratic systems, identifies regional trends in political reform, and gauges the value and types of reform that may hold promise for strengthening democracy in the future.

Despite decades of reform and global integration, many people in Latin America claim they are worse off. This book argues that democratization, macroeconomic stabilization, and globalization have disrupted the traditional labor-market-based paths of integration based on public and formal employment and made those left behind more vulnerable to the traditional forces of discrimination and exclusion.

Using unique household data sets for six Latin American countries, the essays collected in this volume put together a compelling picture of the effects of privatization.

What determines the capacity of countries to design, approve, and implement effective public policies? To address this issue, this book builds on the results of a comparative study of political institutions, policymaking processes, and policy outcomes in eight Latin American countries. The volume benefits from both micro detail on the intricacies of policymaking in individual countries and a broad cross-country interdisciplinary analysis of the process in the region.

In South and Central America, a movement toward further economic integration has begun. In the hope of helping to make the process smoother, and to foster a better understanding of the policy actions required, the Inter-American Development Bank studied the impact of trade integration on taxes. Twelve of these studies are collected here in this book.

This book explores key metropolitan management issues, presents practical principles of good governance as they apply to the metropolis, and unfolds cases of institutional and programmatic arrangements to tackle such issues.

This book explores the impact of transport costs on trade in Latin America and the Caribbean, and argues that transport costs have assumed an unprecedented strategic importance to the region. It concludes that a broader and more balanced trade agenda would bring the long-neglected issue of transport costs to the center of the policy debate.

Traditionally, the concept of quality of life has been viewed through objective indicators of living conditions, basic needs, or capabilities. In Beyond Facts, the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) looks at quality of life through the perceptions of millions of Latin Americans. Using an enhanced version of the recently created Gallup World Poll that incorporates Latin America–specific questions, the IDB surveyed people from throughout the region and found that reality and perceptions of quality of life are often very different. Beyond Facts attempts to explain these differences and consider their implications for both politics and policy.

The budget is the main tool used to allocate scarce public resources, and it is in the context of the budget process that politicians must make trade-offs between different policy priorities. This volume describes the budget practices, both formal and informal, in ten countries of Latin America and explains fiscal results in terms of these four features.

In the past 30 years, democratic freedom and competitive electoral processes have taken hold as never before in Latin America. This book zeroes in on the intricate workings of democratic institutions (political party systems and the legislature), the actors that participate in democratic systems (governors, judges, bureaucrats, and other members of civil society), and the arenas in which political and policy interactions take place (formal or informal). How do those institutions, actors, and arenas affect the policymaking processes of Latin American countries for better or worse? In its scope and complexity, the volume moves well beyond stylized views of the political systems in Latin America.

Why do some export activities succeed while others fail? Here, research teams analyze export endeavors in Latin American countries to learn how export pioneers are born and jump-start a process leading to economic transformation. Case studies range from blueberries in Argentina and flowers in Colombia to aircraft in Brazil and software in Uruguay.