Economic growth and performance in Latin America

Introduction This paper addresses some important questions with respect to economic growth in Latin America, comparing the so-called post-crisis period and the 1990s with a base period in a selected group of nine countries (Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Jamaica, Mexico and Peru);1 . Latin America experienced steady economic growth in the three decades after World War II, with total gross domestic product (GDP); growing at around 5%. This period serves as the base period against which to analyse the developments in the 1980s and 1990s. The profound crisis of the 1980s revealed some of the structural weaknesses of Latin American economic development. In response, most countries of the region felt compelled to undertake structural reforms with the aim of creating more stable economies which would form a more integral part of the international context and which would be capable of significant and sustainable growth. This paper forms part of an ambitious project to study the impact of the reform processes listed above in nine countries. The basic objective of the project is to study the relation between the structural reforms applied in the region in the last decade, which have led to a change in the Latin American development model, and their impact on economic growth, equity and employment. The relevant theme of the project is to analyse the impact of the economic reforms, through the economic structure, on economic growth. Special emphasis is given in this paper to economic growth and to differences in intercountry and intertemporal GDP growth rates of in the sample of countries. The performance of the selected economies on the aggregate level is analysed in terms of economic growth, factor accumulation and different types of productivity.