Latin America

Ravinutala, S., Gomez-Lievano, A. & Lora, E., 2017. Assessing Rural Productive Capabilities and Identifying Potential Products by Municipality, Growth Lab at Harvard's Center for International Development.Abstract

How can the productive capabilities of each municipality be unleashed taking into consideration the resources available to them? A first pass at this ambitious question begins by understanding the set of outputs a municipality is capable of producing. We answer this by discovering relationships between agricultural inputs and outputs and ask a relatively simpler question: how similar are agricultural outputs in terms of the inputs they use? Answering this question is made difficult by the fact that most UPAs cultivate just one or two crops. This may be a rational response to economies of scale. Given a plot of land and inputs, it may be easier to cultivate one crop on the entire land than plant a number of them with each requiring a different care regimen3. It may be that the inputs available only allow for a few types of crops.

In this paper, we use the rural census data from Colombia to build an agricultural product space capturing the similarities between outputs. We test the predictive power of the product space and use this to answer the question above. In section 2, we discuss the various sources of data and how they are merged, cleaned, and transformed before processing. In section 3, we look at some high level features of the dataset and how inputs, outputs, and land use are related. In section 4, we explore the mechanics of diversification.

We construct similarity and density matrices and show that they do indeed predict what a municipality produces. Finally, in section 5 we use Machine Learning algorithms and the density matrices to predict municipalities that are best suited to produce a given output. Further, we identify "missing" municipalitiesoutput pairs i.e. municipalities that should be producing a given output at high yield but currently are not. Finally, we summarize our findings and suggest areas for further work.

In this report we will be making extensive use of concepts described in more detail in the companion report "How Industry-Related Capabilities Affect Export Possibilities," especially with respect to Machine Learning techniques.

Ravinutala, S., Gomez-Lievano, A. & Lora, E., 2017. How Industry-Related Capabilities Affect Export Possibilities, Cambridge: Growth Lab at Harvard's Center for International Development.Abstract

The central question we will explore in this document is: Can we anticipate the opportunities that Colombian cities have to export specific products based on their existing productive capabilities?

In the following pages, we report a collection of results, analyses, and advances in which we assess how industry-related capabilities affect export possibilities. Our final goal will be to create a single measure that synthesizes all the knowledge and existing information about the productive capabilities of each city, both “horizontal” and “vertical”, and that quantifies how competitive a city can be if it aims at exporting a given product it does not yet export.

This document is broken in two main efforts: First, we want to understand the “mechanics” of diversification processes. And second, we want to be able to provide recommendations of products that are not produced in cities, but should be. The first effort requires a multitude of analyses, each trying to describe the characteristics of firms, of cities, and of the mechanisms that expand the export baskets of places. The second effort requires the development of a statistical model that is accurate when predicting the appearances of products in cities. These two efforts, explaining and predicting, are complementary, but different.

Explanations that lack the power of accurately predicting the future are useless in practice; predictions of phenomena for which we lack understanding are dangerous. But together they provide a unified story that can inform policy decisions.

Hausmann, R., Pietrobelli, C. & Santos, M.A., 2018. Place-specific Determinants of Income Gaps: New Sub-National Evidence from Chiapas, Mexico.Abstract

The literature on income gaps between Chiapas and the rest of Mexico revolves around individual factors, such as education and ethnicity. Yet, twenty years after the Zapatista rebellion, the schooling gap between Chiapas and the other Mexican entities has shrunk while the income gap has widened, and we find no evidence indicating that Chiapas indigenes are worse-off than their likes elsewhere in Mexico. We explore a different hypothesis. Based on census data, we calculate the economic complexity index, a measure of the knowledge agglomeration embedded in the economic activities at a municipal level in Mexico. Economic complexity explains a larger fraction of the income gap than any individual factor. Our results suggest that chiapanecos are not the problem, the problem is Chiapas. These results hold when we extend our analysis to Mexico’s thirty-one federal entities, suggesting that place-specific determinants that have been overlooked in both the literature and policy, have a key role in the determination of income gaps.

 

Revised February 2020
Hausmann, R., Hinz, J. & Yildirim, M.A., 2018. Measuring Venezuelan Emigration with Twitter.Abstract
Venezuela has seen an unprecedented exodus of people in recent months. In response to a dramatic economic downturn in which inflation is soaring, oil production tanking, and a humanitarian catastrophe unfolding, many Venezuelans are seeking refuge in neighboring countries. However, the lack of official numbers on emigration from the Venezuelan government, and receiving countries largely refusing to acknowledge a refugee status for affected people, it has been difficult to quantify the magnitude of this crisis. In this note we document how we use data from the social media service Twitter to measure the emigration of people from Venezuela. Using a simple statistical model that allows us to correct for a sampling bias in the data, we estimate that up to 2,9 million Venezuelans have left the country in the past year.
What is different about urbanization in rich and poor countries? Cities in Brazil, China, India and the United States
Chauvin, J.P., et al., 2017. What is different about urbanization in rich and poor countries? Cities in Brazil, China, India and the United States. Journal of Urban Economics , 98 (March 2017) , pp. 17-49. Publisher's VersionAbstract
Are the well-known facts about urbanization in the United States also true for the developing world? We compare American metropolitan areas with analogous geographic units in Brazil, China and India. Both Gibrat’s Law and Zipf’s Law seem to hold as well in Brazil as in the U.S., but China and India look quite different. In Brazil and China, the implications of the spatial equilibrium hypothesis, the central organizing idea of urban economics, are not rejected. The India data, however, repeatedly rejects tests inspired by the spatial equilibrium assumption. One hypothesis is that spatial equilibrium only emerges with economic development, as markets replace social relationships and as human capital spreads more widely. In all four countries there is strong evidence of agglomeration economies and human capital externalities. The correlation between density and earnings is stronger in both China and India than in the U.S., strongest in China. In India the gap between urban and rural wages is huge, but the correlation between city size and earnings is more modest. The cross-sectional relationship between area-level skills and both earnings and area-level growth are also stronger in the developing world than in the U.S. The forces that drive urban success seem similar in the rich and poor world, even if limited migration and difficult housing markets make it harder for a spatial equilibrium to develop.
Santos, M. & Reinhart, C., 2016. From Financial Repression to External Distress: The Case of Venezuela. Emerging Markets Finance and Trade , (Jan. 2016) , pp. 1-30. Publisher's VersionAbstract
Recent work suggests a connection between domestic debt and external default. We examine potential linkages for Venezuela, where the evidence reveals a nexus among domestic debt, financial repression, and external vulnerability. The financial repression tax (as a share of GDP) is similar to OECD economies, in spite of higher debt ratios in the latter. The financial repression “tax rate” is higher in years of exchange controls and legislated interest rate ceilings. We document a link between domestic disequilibrium and a weakening of the net foreign asset position via private capital flight. We suggest these findings are not unique to Venezuela.
Venezuela: Public Debate and the Management of Oil Resources and Revenues
Villasmil, R., 2018. Venezuela: Public Debate and the Management of Oil Resources and Revenues. In Public Brainpower. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham, pp. 347-367. Publisher's VersionAbstract
Although Venezuela’s experience since the 1980s would seem to make it a classic example of the resource curse, that perspective fails to explain the country’s impressive economic, social and institutional performance—including healthy public debate—during the first five decades after oil was first produced on a large scale. This chapter takes a long view of the Venezuelan experience and argues that this initial performance was lengthy and positive but fragile, given the incapacity of the country’s institutions to adapt to the different environment that developed afterwards, characterized by high oil price volatility and significant and sudden declines in oil revenues. The prolonged initial period of equilibrium became a curse of sorts. Lacking adaptive efficiency, political institutions were forced to rely increasingly on maintaining an illusion of harmony, and as faltering performance became evident, Venezuelans began questioning the model and its hegemonic arrangements. The scope and magnitude of the economic, social and institutional devastation that followed were such that public debate became one the first casualties. One of the main problems in contemporary Venezuela is the polarization of politics. This makes it difficult for the country’s population to arrive at reasonable solutions through public discussion.
Halff, A., et al., 2017. Apocalypse Now: Venezuela, Oil and Reconstruction, Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs. Publisher's VersionAbstract

Venezuela is at a breaking point. The political, economic, financial, social and humanitarian crisis that has gripped the country is intensifying. This unsustainable situation raises several urgent questions: Which path will the embattled OPEC country take out of the current turmoil? What type of political transition lies ahead? What short-term and long-term impact will the crisis have on its ailing oil industry, economy and bond debt? What would be the best and most effective prescription for oil and economic recovery under a new governance regime? To discuss these matters, the Center on Global Energy Policy brought together on June 19, 2017 a group of about 45 experts, including oil industry executives, investment bankers, economists and political scientists from leading think tanks and universities, consultants, and multilateral organization representatives. This note provides some of the highlights from that roundtable discussion, which was held under the Chatham House rule.

Hausmann, R., Santos, M.A. & Obach, J., 2017. Appraising the Economic Potential of Panama: Policy Recommendations for Sustainable and Inclusive Growth.Abstract

This report aims to summarize the main findings of the project as gathered by the three baseline documents, and frame them within a coherent set of policy recommendations that can help Panama to maintain their growth momentum in time and make it more inclusive. Three elements stand out as cornerstones of our proposal:

(i) attracting and retaining qualified human capital;

(ii) maximizing the diffusion of know-how and knowledge spillovers, and

(iii) leveraging on public-private dialog to tackle coordination problems that are hindering economic activity outside the Panama-Colón axis.

Bahar, D., Molina, C.A. & Santos, M.A., 2017. Fool’s Gold: On the Impact of Venezuelan Devaluations in Multinational Stock Prices.Abstract

This paper documents negative cumulative abnormal returns (CARs) to five exchange rate devaluations in Venezuela within the context of stiff exchange controls and large black-market premiums, using daily stock prices for 110 multinationals with Venezuelan subsidiaries. The results suggest evidence of statistically and economically significant negative CARs of up to 2.07% over the ten-day event window. We find consistent results using synthetic controls to causally infer the effect of each devaluation on the stock prices of global firms active in the country at the time of the event. Our results are at odds with the predicaments of the efficient market hypothesis stating that predictable devaluations should not impact stock prices of large multinational companies on the day of the event, and even less so when they happen in small countries. We interpret these results as suggestive indication of market inefficiencies in the process of asset pricing.

O'Clery, N., Gomez-Lievano, A. & Lora, E., 2016. The Path to Labor Formality: Urban Agglomeration and the Emergence of Complex Industries.Abstract

Labor informality, associated with low productivity and lack of access to social security services, dogs developing countries around the world. Rates of labor (in)formality, however, vary widely within countries. This paper presents a new stylized fact, namely the systematic positive relationship between the rate of labor formality and the working age population in cities. We hypothesize that this phenomenon occurs through the emergence of complex economic activities: as cities become larger, labor is allocated into increasingly complex industries as firms combine complementary capabilities derived from a more diverse pool of workers. Using data from Colombia, we use a network-based model to show that the technological proximity (derived from worker transitions between industry pairs) of current industries in a city to potential new complex industries governs the growth of the formal sector in the city. The mechanism proposed has robust strong predictive power, and fares better than alternative explanations of (in)formality.

Hausmann, R., et al., 2016. Towards a Prosperous and Productive Chiapas: Institutions, Policies, and Public-Private Dialog to Promote Inclusive Growth.Abstract

Since the Zapatista revolution of January 1994, enormous amount of resources coming from the federal government have poured over Chiapas. The gap in years and quality of education has been reduced significantly; and road, port and airport infrastructure have undergone a dramatic transformation. And yet, the income gap between Chiapas and the rest of Mexico has only widened. To understand why, a multi-disciplinary team of twelve experts have devoted significant time and resources to study different aspects of the development dynamic of Chiapas. As a result, 5 base documents have been published analyzing Chiapas:

- Complexity profile
- Growth Diagnostic
- Institutional Diagnostic
- Poverty profile
- Pilot of productive dialogs and inclusive growth in an indigenous community

This report resumes the findings from these and articulates their corresponding recommendations into a policy plan.

According to our hypothesis, Chiapas is wedged in a low productivity trap. A modern production system, responsible for productivity increases, income and development elsewhere in the world, requires a number of complementary inputs or capacities that are absent in Chiapas. As a result, its economy consists of a few primary products of little or no technological sophistication, and a vibrant service industry fueled by public expenditure in its larger cities. In this situation, there are no incentives to acquire additional education or skills because there is no demand for them in the economy. As we have proved, the few that manage to emigrate earn salaries elsewhere in Mexico slightly above other migrants with similar qualifications. As it turns out, it is not about the Chiapanecos, it is about Chiapas.

To overcome the current dilemmas and spark the engine of growth, Chiapas needs to resolve its issues of coordination, connectivity and gradually promote economic activities of higher complexity. Yazaki, one of the few manufacturers present in Chiapas, is an example of the role of the state in helping the economy to overcome the chicken-and-egg dilemmas, providing the public goods required - in an initial push – by a more complex economy. Our recommendations are based in identifying the productive capabilities embedded within the current productive structure of Chiapas four largest urban agglomerations, and leveraging on them to board on different potential, more complex industries that use a similar base of knowledge. To conquer those industries and diversify its economy, Chiapas needs a public-private agency empowered to iteratively solve the issues and bottlenecks these potential industries face in each particular place. Public transport and housing policy can be used as means to incorporating the surrounding communities into the increasingly modern economies of urban centers. Special economic zones and agro-industrial parks can be used to spur productivity in those areas where labor and appropriability are the most binding constrains.

Levy, D., et al., 2015. Why is Chiapas Poor?.Abstract

No matter which way you look at it, Chiapas is the most backward of any state in Mexico. Its per capita income is the lowest of the 32 federal entities, at barely 40% of the national median (Figure 1). Its growth rate for the decade 2003-2013 was also the lowest (0.2%),1 causing the income gap separating Chiapas from the national average to increase from 53% to 60%. That is to say that today the average income for a worker in Mexico is two and a half times greater than the average in Chiapas. The two next poorest states, Oaxaca and Guerrero, are 25% and 30% above Chiapas.2 According to the Instituto Nacional de Estadística y Geografía de México (INEGI, National Institute of Statistics and Geography), Chiapas is also the state with the highest poverty rate (74.7%) as well as extreme poverty (46.7%).3

These major differences in income levels among Mexican federal entities are reproduced as in a fractal within Chiapas. In fact, while the wealthiest entity (Mexico City) is wealthier than the poorest (Chiapas) by a factor of six, the difference within Chiapas between the wealthiest municipality (Tuxtla Gutiérrez) and the poorest (Aldama and Mitontic) is by a factor greater than eight.4

As there are different "Mexicos" within Mexico,5 in Chiapas there are also different sorts of Chiapas (Figure 2). Income per capita in Tuxtla Gutiérrez, to the right of the distribution, is five standard deviations above the state average. Next comes a series of intermediate cities, San Cristóbal de las Casas, Comitán de Domínguez, Tapachula, and Reforma, between two and a half to four standard deviations above the average. The remaining municipalities of Chiapas follow (122 in all), clustered to the far left of the distribution. In addition, both the statistics available at the town level and our visits to various municipalities in Chiapas seem to indicate that significant differences also exist within these municipalities.

From this vantage point, questions as to why Chiapas is poor, or what explains its significant backwardness compared to other areas of Mexico, become much more complex. Why do some regions in Chiapas have high income levels, while other regions remain stagnant, fully dependent on federal transfers and deprived from the benefits of modern life?

1 This is the non-oil gross domestic product growth rate reported by INEGI, considered to be more representative of the productive spectrum. In any case, the overall rate of growth in Chiapas (-0.2%) was also the lowest amongst all Mexican entities for the decade.
2 Refers to non-oil GDP; in general terms, Guerrero and Oaxaca are 19% and 16% above Chiapas.
3 Growth figures refer to the decade 2003-2013, poverty figures are those published by INEGI for 2012.
4 Comparisons of Chiapas municipalities are made based on the data from the 10% sample of the 2010 Population Census, which is representative at the state level.
5 This is a reference to the report, A tale of two Mexicos: Growth and prosperity in a two-speed economy, McKinsey Global Institute (2014).

Guerra, A., 2016. More Goals, More Growth? A Take on the Mexican Sports Economy through the Economic Complexity Framework.Abstract

In order to appropriately understand the sports sector, its magnitude, embeddedness in the economy, and strategic value, it is necessary to develop a framework through which to study it. Having a standardized and comprehensive methodology to analyze the sports sector will allow policymakers, academics, and other stakeholders to look at the sports sector at a new level of detail and rigor.

Previous work has outlined the numerous data quality and aggregation challenges currently present in the sports economy literature (Russell, Barrios & Andrews 2016). In light of these challenges, this paper attempts to build on the suggested categorization of the sports industry and develop a sound strategy to analyze the sector through an empirical exercise in a specific context: the Mexican Economy.

To this end, we first attempt to understand how connected the sports sector is to other activities in the economy and identify which sectors share similar know-how with m1. Additionally, we attempt to determine the relative magnitude of the sports sector through variables such as value added and employment.

Similarly, we consider study the spatial considerations around sports related economic activities at a subnational level. The advancement of spatial economics has allowed us to understand a new dimension of how an economic sector can develop and how characteristics inherent to a given geography can play a role in determining why some activities end up appearing and developing in the places they do.

Lastly, some descriptive and regression analysis efforts in this paper enabled us to better understand and characterize the sports sector. Such exercises allow us to learn what type of workers typically comprises the sports sector, and whether such profile is different across the different categories of sports activities. Among the variables analyzed I the descriptive exercise, we can look at education level and wages–among others–of those who work on this sector, and compare them to the overall employed population.

This paper is structured as follows: Section 1 will make the case for how publicly available data in Mexico meets the level of detail required for this type of study. Section 2 will look at the way in which the sports sector is nested in the overall economy. Section 3 studies the magnitude of the sports sector through different metrics. Section 4 looks at the type of jobs that comprise the sports sector. Section 5 looks at the differences in intensity of sports activities and early work on its potential causal roots. Section 6 provides some conclusions.
 

Russell, S., Barrios, D. & Andrews, M., 2016. Getting the Ball Rolling: Basis for Assessing the Sports Economy.Abstract

Data on the sports economy is often difficult to interpret, far from transparent, or simply unavailable. Data fraught with weaknesses causes observers of the sports economy to account for the sector differently, rendering their analyses difficult to compare or causing them to simply disagree. Such disagreement means that claims regarding the economic spillovers of the industry can be easily manipulated or exaggerated. Thoroughly accounting for the industry is therefore an important initial step in assessing the economic importance of sports-related activities. For instance, what do policymakers mean when they discuss sports-related economic activities? What activities are considered part of the "sports economy?" What are the difficulties associated with accounting for these activities? Answering these basic questions allows governments to improve their policies.

The paper below assesses existing attempts to understand the sports economy and proposes a more nuanced way to consider the industry. Section 1 provides a brief overview of existing accounts of the sports economy. We first differentiate between three types of assessments: market research accounts conducted by consulting groups, academic accounts written by scholars, and structural accounts initiated primarily by national statistical agencies. We then discuss the European Union’s (EU) recent work to better account for and understand the sports economy. Section 2 describes the challenges constraining existing accounts of the sports economy. We describe two major constraints - measurement challenges and definition challenges - and highlight how the EU's work has attempted to address them. We conclude that, although the Vilnius Definition improves upon previous accounts, it still features areas for improvement.

Section 3 therefore proposes a paradigm shift with respect to how we understand the sports economy. Instead of primarily inquiring about the size of the sports economy, the approach recognizes the diversity of sports-related economic activities and of relevant dimensions of analysis. It therefore warns against attempts at aggregation before there are better data and more widely agreed upon definitions of the sports economy. It asks the following questions: How different are sports-related sectors? Are fitness facilities, for instance, comparable to professional sports clubs in terms of their production scheme and type of employment? Should they be understood together or treated separately? We briefly explore difference in sports-related industry classifications using data from the Netherlands, Mexico, and the United States. Finally, in a short conclusion, we discuss how these differences could be more fully explored in the future, especially if improvements are made with respect to data disaggregation and standardization.

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