Saving rates display great variation across countries and over time. They are also closely related to growth performance. This 1999 volume provides an account of key variables, institutions and policies that determine saving. Drawing from a systematic exploration of the existing literature, the collection summarizes knowledge about cross-country saving trends, the relation between saving and growth, the impact of financial policies and institutions on saving, the effect of foreign resource inflows on saving, and the links between income distribution and aggregate saving. In addition, new research results are presented on the two latter areas. The work has a strong empirical motivation: to help address real-world issues on consumption and saving in both industrial and developing countries, in order to assist in the design of rational and effective macroeconomic policies.

"Lederman, Maloney, and Serven offer an excellent empirical investigation into the impacts of the North America Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) on the Mexican economy. . . . The authors pay close attention to the experiences of other Latin American countries and the European Union while avoiding ideological debates." -- CHOICE
" Lessons from NAFTA" is important perhaps less for what it tells us about changes under a free-trade agreement and more for its nuanced and careful empirical investigation of how trade can actually make people better off. This, indeed, is the ' big story' of NAFTA and the potential for free trade agreements in the region." -- Political Science Quarterly"

Latin America' s macroeconomic crises of the 1980s and ' 90s forced a severe fiscal adjustment across the region. More often than not, fiscal stability was achieved at the cost of a drastic compression of public infrastructure spending, accompanied by the hope that the private sector would take the leading role in infrastructure provision. This book documents the major trends in infrastructure provision in Latin America over the past two decades n order to assess the consequences of this changed public-private partnership from the perspective of economic growth, public finances, and the quantity and quality of infrastructure services. It will be of particular interest to those in the fields of infrastructure, fiscal policy, and economic growth, and anyone concerned with Latin America' s development. For orders originating outside of North America, please visit the World Bank website for a list of distributors and geographic discounts at http: //publications.worldbank.org/howtoorder or e-mail [email protected].

"Lederman, Maloney, and Serven offer an excellent empirical investigation into the impacts of the North America Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) on the Mexican economy. . . . The authors pay close attention to the experiences of other Latin American countries and the European Union while avoiding ideological debates." -- CHOICE
" Lessons from NAFTA" is important perhaps less for what it tells us about changes under a free-trade agreement and more for its nuanced and careful empirical investigation of how trade can actually make people better off. This, indeed, is the ' big story' of NAFTA and the potential for free trade agreements in the region." -- Political Science Quarterly"

Saving rates display great variation across countries and over time. They are also closely related to growth performance. This 1999 volume provides an account of key variables, institutions and policies that determine saving. Drawing from a systematic exploration of the existing literature, the collection summarizes knowledge about cross-country saving trends, the relation between saving and growth, the impact of financial policies and institutions on saving, the effect of foreign resource inflows on saving, and the links between income distribution and aggregate saving. In addition, new research results are presented on the two latter areas. The work has a strong empirical motivation: to help address real-world issues on consumption and saving in both industrial and developing countries, in order to assist in the design of rational and effective macroeconomic policies.

The Schumpeterian process of 'creative destruction' is an essential ingredient of a dynamic economy. In many countries around the world, however, this process is weakened by pervasive regulation of product and factor markets. This book documents the regulatory obstacles faced by firms, particularly in developing countries, and assesses their implications for firm renewal and macroeconomic performance. Combining a variety of methodological approaches--analytical and empirical, micro and macroeconomic, single- and cross-country-- the book provides evidence that streamlining the regulatory framework would have a significant social pay-off, particularly in developing countries that are also burdened by weak governance. The book's chapters trace out analytically and empirically the links between microeconomic policies and distortions, on the one hand, and aggregate performance in terms of productivity, growth and volatility, on the other. The volume adds to a novel but increasingly influential literature that seeks to understand macroeconomic phenomena from a microeconomic perspective, and derive the relevant lessons for development policy. Such literature is still fairly scarce in the case of industrial countries, and virtually in its infancy for developing countries.

Over the 1980s and 1990s, most Latin American countries witnessed a retrenchment of the public sector from infrastructure provision and an opening up of infrastructure activities to the private sector. This book analyzes the consequences of these policy changes from two perspectives. First, it reviews in a comparative framework the major trends in infrastructure provision in Latin America over the last two decades. Second, it evaluates the implication of these trends for economic growth and public deficits in the region. The book shows that in most countries private participation did not fully offset the public sector retrenchment. The result was a slowdown in infrastructure accumulation, which entailed a significant growth cost and weakened the intended impact of the infrastructure spending cuts on public sector insolvency.