Structural Change in Latin America: Does the Allocation of Resources across Sectors, Products, and Technologies Explain the Region’s Slow Productivity Growth?

Schiffbauer, Marc; Sahnoun, Hania; Araujo, Jorge Thompson

doi:10.1596/978-1-4648-0450-2_ch4

Cited by 3 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 16 publications

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“…There is a growing literature (see e.g. McMillan and Rodrik [2011] and Schiffbauer et al [2016]) suggesting that certain forms of structural change -understood as movements of workers from one sector to another -may have an adverse impact on aggregate average productivity of labor. This happens if labor shifts from high-to low-productivity sectors, due to policy or institutional distortions that create perverse incentives for sectoral resource reallocations.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Import Substitution with Labor Misallocation

Martins

Araujo²

2018

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The Policy Research Working Paper Series disseminates the findings of work in progress to encourage the exchange of ideas about development issues. An objective of the series is to get the findings out quickly, even if the presentations are less than fully polished. The papers carry the names of the authors and should be cited accordingly. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this paper are entirely those of the authors. They do not necessarily represent the views of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development/World Bank and its affiliated organizations, or those of the Executive Directors of the World Bank or the governments they represent.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Import Substitution with Labor Misallocation

Martins

Araujo²

2018

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“…As is natural for Latin America's level of development, millions of workers have moved from manufacturing and work in agriculture to jobs in service sectors such as retailing, wholesaling, construction, and government. But because of the services sectors' comparatively low productivity, in seven of a sample of nine countries in the region between 1990 and 2005, this shift resulted in lower overall value added per worker, dragging down the average productivity of the entire country (Schiffbauer et al [2016] in Araujo et al [2016b]). In Argentina, for example, several large service sectors have swelled in recent years, notably government employment (Figure 7).…”

Section: Low Labor Productivity In "Insulated" Sectors Reduces Overalmentioning

confidence: 99%

Productivity Growth in Latin American and the Caribbean

Araujo¹,

Vostroknutova²,

Wacker³

2017

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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.

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