In the most recent July/August issue of Foreign Affairs, many people including Richard Lapper, Larry Rohter, Ronaldo Lemos, and myself respond to Ruchir Sharma’s May/June article “Bearish on Brazil,” which predicted that Brazil’s rise would end as soon as global commodity prices leveled out. In my piece, “Stability is Success,” I argue that while it is true that challenges remain for Brazil, its recent reforms and social programs have helped develop the economy and middle class in such a way that the country will no longer rise and fall solely on the basis of external market fluctuations. Read more »

Last year foreign direct investment (FDI) in Latin America continued its surge, topping $150 billion, an all time high for the region. According to the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean’s report “Foreign Direct Investment in Latin America and the Caribbean,” the inflows climbed 31 percent—the most of any region and three times Asia’s growth rate—and now represent just over 10 percent of total global investment (breaking into the double digits for the first time as well). Read more »

In the economic development world, one of Latin America’s claims to fame are its conditional cash transfer programs (CCTs), which provide direct money transfers to low-income families who send their children to school and/or get basic health care. A few of these programs, such as Bolsa Família in Brazil and Oportunidades in Mexico, reach millions of families (some 20 percent of the two countries’ households). Others are smaller and more targeted toward the extreme poor, such as Chile Solidario in Chile, Familias en Acción in Colombia, and Bono de Desarrollo Humano in Ecuador. Most now boast at least a decade in place, providing a track record to test their reach and effectiveness. Read more »

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) released a report this month on the overall well-being of its thirty four member countries (as well as Brazil and Russia). Looking specifically at the three Latin American countries in the study—Mexico, Brazil, and Chile—some of the results aren’t surprising. The three countries all come in the bottom four positions (joined by Turkey) in categories such as safety, education, and income, far outpaced by the more mature economies within the organization. Read more »

Though specific countries usually capture the headlines for their bloodiness—Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, and often Colombia—security problems are widespread throughout Latin America. For the region which holds the unfortunate distinction of being the world’s most violent, a new Latinobarómetro report looks at the recent trends, and through survey data,  tries to tease out how this affects perceptions, people, and, more broadly, democracy. Read more »

The recent IMF economic outlook report entitled, “The Western Hemisphere: Rebuilding Strength and Flexibility,” is overall quite bullish on the region. Fueled by favorable commodity prices and plentiful international credit, it lauds (as much as the IMF does) the steady growth of the past decade. Perhaps as important for the IMF, many Latin American governments have used rising revenues in economically sound ways. The region as a whole has turned deficits to surpluses, and lowered debt to GDP levels by some 15 percent. Many countries invested in targeted social programs, helping reduce regional poverty levels from 44 percent in 2002 to 33 percent in 2008. Read more »

Yesterday I attended the annual Brazil Summit in New York, organized by the Brazilian-American Chamber of Commerce. What struck me in the presentations (reinforcing what I heard during my last two visits to Brazil), was the quite disparate views of Brazil today and the levers for growth tomorrow. Read more »

The sixth Summit of the Americas on April 14-15 is part of an intense spring of bilateral and regional interactions in the hemisphere. It will bring together thirty-three heads of state from nearly every member of the Organization of American States (OAS) in Cartegena, Colombia, to discuss regional issues ranging from expanding economic ties to turning back a surge in criminal activity. Read more »