This paper provides some theoretical scenarios the socioeconomic impacts caused by the COVID-19 pandemic for the Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC). To do so, after a brief literature review of previous pandemics, we use the macro and microeconomic theory, together with aggregated data, in order to provide expected implications of the COVID-19 pandemic for the LAC region. At a macroeconomic level, we explain how the COVID-19 shock is causing both aggregate supply and aggregate demand to reduce so plunging the region into a recession and why such a recession is dangerously harmful for the LAC economies. At a micro level, we describe why some enterprises would adapt to remain in the market or even growth; by contrast, some of them would leave the market in the short term. For the consumers, the impact of this sanitary crisis is related to the change in their preferences and household members’ relations due to extended quarantines.

La presente investigación indaga sobre las consecuencias de implementar programas gubernamentales enfocados exclusivamente al incremento de la productividad agrícola mediante el uso de insumos químicos y semillas mejoradas – práctica propia a la llamada Revolución Verde. Así, se toma como caso de estudio al Plan Semillas de Alto Rendimiento (PSAR) con sus dos cultivos objetivo, a saber, el maíz duro y el arroz, durante los años 2014 y 2016, y se utiliza métodos econométricos, insumidos con información estadística provista por la Encuesta de Superficie y Producción Agropecuaria Continua (ESPAC), para proporcionar evidencia empírica que permita extender el debate sobre los efectos de la política pública ecuatoriana pro-productividad agrícola más allá del simple aumento de las toneladas producidas por hectárea. El énfasis es, por un lado, en la disyuntiva productividad-exclusión al considerar al PSAR como parte de un proceso de concentración indirecta de la tierra (Yumbla y Herrera, 2013) y, por otro lado, en la disyuntiva productividad-diversidad al considerar al PSAR como un potencial riesgo para la biodiversidad y, por tanto, para la soberanía alimentaria (Sarandón, 2002). Los resultados muestran no solo que el uso de insumos químicos y variedades mejoradas no garantiza el incremento la productividad agrícola sino también que el planteamiento unidimensional del objetivo de aumentar la producción por hectárea sembrada tiene secuelas en factores como: biodiversidad, concentración de la tierra, asociatividad y rol de la mujer.

This article reports an investigation of the drivers of Venezuelan asylum seekers—people who have left this country given the scarcity of food and medicines and the troubled actual socio-economic situation. To do so, we use data about the main countries in which Venezuelans have claimed for asylum during the period 2014–17. Using a panel-regression model, we have found that Venezuelan asylum seekers increase, on average, in countries that (i) are geographically nearby Venezuela, (ii) are less politically stable and (iii) have higher real income per capita, lower inflation rates and higher unemployment rates. Still, such a general profile of countries preferred by Venezuelan asylum seekers is nuanced by the small magnitude of the effects regarding the economic variables: it appears that Venezuelan asylum seekers hardly consider the economic situation of a country for deciding to stay. Furthermore, the empirical evidence provided by our model reflects the deterioration of Venezuela’s socio-economic aspects.

This paper studies how the public provision of transportation infrastructure impacts output convergence and trade integration in a two-country dynamic general equilibrium model in which the transportation cost between countries is endogenously determined by the stock of public infrastructure in both countries. Because of its particular conception, the so-called ‘Initiative for the Integration of Regional Infrastructure in South America IIRSA’ serves as the case of study. Data from Argentina and Brazil is thus used to solve the model. Two main results emerge. First, increasing public investment in infrastructure provides an impetus to commercial integration but does not necessarily generate output convergence. Second, the model shows that the only way for the two countries to achieve output convergence (in a win–win economic growth scenario) is to coordinate their increments on public infrastructure, as proposed by IIRSA.

El Impuesto al Valor Agregado (IVA) es aquel de mayor recaudación tributaria en Ecuador. Por su naturaleza regresiva, su aumento implicaría importantes repercusiones sobre la distribución del ingreso. Esta investigación identifica partidas de gasto de consumo para las cuales un incremento marginal de la tasa del IVA aumentaría la recaudación tributaria sin afectar la progresividad, usando herramientas de análisis de reforma marginal, a saber, (i) cálculo de Elasticidades Gini de la Renta Neta, para identificar las partidas de gasto candidatas; y, (ii) estimación de Pseudo-elasticidades de Kakwani y Reynolds-Smolensky, para cuantificar los efectos de cambios marginales en términos de equidad vertical.