Productivity Growth in Latin American and the Caribbean

Abstract

This paper brings together the main findings and policy implications of two recent World Bank regional reports on economic growth in Latin America and the Caribbean: Araujo, Vostroknutova, Wacker and Clavijo, eds. (2016) and Araujo, Vostroknutova, Brueckner, Clavijo, and Wacker (2016). In doing so, the paper focuses on finding the right balance between micro-and macro-inference when thinking about growth in Latin America and the Caribbean. The paper documents the region's growth performance over the past decade, highlighting the roles played by the commodity boom, macroeconomic stabilization and structural reforms. It notes that, despite faster growth during the first decade of this century, the region failed to achieve sustained convergence towards higher income levels. The paper points out that the persistent income gap could be reduced through: (i) increasing focus on closing the efficiency gapbeyond mere factor accumulation; (ii) eliminating distortions that cause misallocation of resources will also improve the incentives to innovate; (iii) identifying the main country-specific constraints to growth instead of looking for universal recipes; (iv) containing macroeconomic volatility, thereby alleviating the negative impact of persistent poverty on growth; and (v) improving the composition of public spending.