OECD Development Centre Working Papers

ISSN :
1815-1949 (online)
DOI :
10.1787/18151949
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The OECD Development Centre links OECD members with developing and emerging economies and fosters debate and discussion to seek creative policy solutions to emerging global issues and development challenges. This series of working papers is intended to disseminate the OECD Development Centre’s research findings rapidly among specialists in the field concerned. These papers are generally available in the original English or French, with a summary in the other language.
 

On the Role of Productivity and Factor Accumulation in Economic Development in Latin America and the Caribbean You or your institution have access to this content

Authors:
Christian Daude1, Eduardo Fernández-Arias2
Author Affiliations
  • 1: OECD, France

  • 2: Inter-American Development Bank, United States

Publication Date
21 Apr 2010
Bibliographic information
No.:
290
Pages
51
DOI
10.1787/5kmh5gpqtdjc-en

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This paper combines development and growth accounting exercises with economic theory to estimate the relative importance of total factor productivity and the accumulation of factors of production in the economic development performance of Latin America. The region’s development performance is assessed in contrast with various alternative benchmarks, both advanced countries and peer countries in other regions. We find that total factor productivity is the predominant factor: low and slow productivity, as opposed to impediments to factor accumulation, is the key to understand Latin America’s low income relative to developed economies and its stagnation relative to other developing countries that are catching up. While policies easing factor accumulation would help improving productivity somewhat, for the most part, closing the productivity gap requires productivity-specific policies.
Keywords:
total factor productivity, development, Latin America, economic growth
JEL Classification:
  • O10: Economic Development, Technological Change, and Growth / Economic Development / General
  • O47: Economic Development, Technological Change, and Growth / Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity / Measurement of Economic Growth; Aggregate Productivity; Cross-Country Output Convergence