Poverty or Potential?
Teresa stops me three blocks from Nueva Imperial’s main plaza on a quiet Wednesday morning, eager to chat. She is wearing a light blue sweater and a matching blue headband glowing slightly against her dark black hair.
Category: The Economy in Latin America
Infections and Inequalities
I read Paul Farmer’s book while on a short visit to Venezuela, and found that setting, at this historical moment in time, particularly pertinent and highly conducive to the arguments Farmer…
Proclaiming the Jubilee
Carmen Rodríguez heads the Charismatic Movement in a sprawling shantytown parish south of Lima, Peru. She and other lay leaders of the Lurín Diocese have been preparing for the…
Its Strengths, Problems, and Future
Latin America can take a punch. Its endurance of a whole series of rather large shocks in the last two years is a tribute to the region’s extensive structural reforms. The consequences a decade…
Health and Wealth
The difficulties of operating in a tropical environment were already abundantly clear during the building of the Panama Canal more than a hundred years ago. “The effect of the climate on tools…
Economic Insecurity in Latin America
A 23-year old Brazilian woman was among 10,000 job applicants seeking a desk job at Banco do Brazil. When asked why she was seeking employment that actually paid less than her present…
Zamorano and its Neighbors
We walked along together, 12-year-old Lizet and I, down the narrow, ragged paths that connected the various houses of El Chaguite to one another. “Let’s call in from here,” Lizet said…
The Central America Project
After decades of armed conflict and political instability, Central America is entering a period of peace and democracy that opens promising perspectives of economic and social progress…
The Birth of INCAE (1963-1965)
Since the birth of INCAE was closely tied to the beginning of my career at Harvard Business School, the reader will perhaps forgive the autobiographical tone of these reflections. And right…
Breaking Ground in Latin America
Harvard Business School is scheduled to open its new Latin America Research Office by August 2000 in Buenos Aires. The office will provide support to HBS faculty conducting research in Latin…
A Look at Zamorano
Jorge Ivan Restrepo was intrigued. Every morning, he watched his professor leaning on a railing to observe cows as they came in from the pasture to be milked. Finally he got up the courage to…
Is Dollarization a Good Idea?
Argentina’s current economic outlook is bleak. Last spring’s shock to international capital markets which caused a devaluation in Brazil has now combined with uncertainty over the…
Dollarization in Latin America
At the dawn of the XXI century, the drastic lowering of barriers to foreign trade and financial transactions, coupled with the volatility of international capital markets, seem to be propelling…
Dollarization and other Dilemmas
Currency policy is one of the most important choices facing Latin American governments and peoples today. Exchange rates have long made front-page news in Latin America. Argentina’s…
Will Brazil Restructure Its Economic Debt?
The economy is mature but the Government, an adolescent.” That’s the way Gustavo Franco, a former president of Brazil’s central bank and a Harvard-trained economist, recently described…
Venezuela in the 1980s, the 1990s and beyond
Venezuela used to be considered a miracle country. Until the early 1980s, it was one of the only four Latin American countries certified by the World Bank as an upper-middle-income economy…
The Benefits of Privatization
Throughout Latin America and in many other parts of the world, such as Eastern Europe people are asking if increased profits of privatized firms are a result of higher prices of products, and…
Shepherds at the End of the Millennium
Shepherds at the End of the Millennium” is an examination of marginal and forgotten Argentines. Argentina is marked by a distorted development that favors the great urban centers- especially…
Art and Economy
As Cuba comes to terms with a dollarized economy and increasing numbers of foreign tourists, the island finds itself in a controversy that is as much about art as it is about economics…
DRCLAS: Two New Chairs
The David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies recently received two gifts to create new chairs at Harvard University…
