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A non-incorporated territory of the United States, Puerto Rico
operates under U.S. legal, monetary, security and tariff systems.
Despite sharing in these and other key U.S. institutions, Puerto
Rico has experienced economic stagnation and large scale
unemployment since the 1970s. The island's living standards are low
by U.S. standards, with a per capita income only half that of
Mississippi, the poorest state. While many studies have analyzed
the fiscal implications of Puerto Rico's political relationship
with the United States, little research has focused broadly on the
island's economic experience or assessed its growth prospects. In
this innovative new book, economists from U.S. and Puerto Rican
institutions address a range of major policy issues affecting the
island's economic development. To frame the current situation, the
contributors begin by assessing Puerto Rico's past experience with
various growth policies. They then analyze several reforms and new
initiatives in labor, education, entrepreneurship, fiscal policy,
migration, trade, and financing development, which they incorporate
into a proposed strategy for jumpstarting Puerto Rican economic
growth. Contributors include Gary Burtless (Brookings Institution);
Orlando Sotomayor, Luis Rivera-Batiz, Ramon Cao, Maria Enchautegui,
Jose Joaquin Villamil, Eileen Segarra, Marines Aponte, and Juan
Lara (University of Puerto Rico); Richard Freeman and Robert
Lawrence (Harvard University); Helen Ladd (Duke University);
Francisco Rivera-Batiz (Columbia University); Steven Davis and
Bruce Meyer (University of Chicago); James Alm (Georgia State
University); Ingo Walter, Rita Maldonado-Bear, and William Baumol
(New York University); Belinda Reyes (University of California,
Merced); Alan Krueger (Princeton University); Carlos Santiago
(University of Wisconsin); David Audretsch (Indiana University);
Ronald Fisher (Michigan State University); Fuat Andic (UN Advisor);
Arturo Estrella (NY Federal Reserve); James Hanson and Daniel
Lederman (World Bank); James Dietz (University of California,
Fullerton); and Katherine Terrell (University of Michigan).
"As a territory of the United States, Puerto Rico enjoys the
benefits of key U.S. legal, monetary, security, and tariff systems,
and its residents are U.S. citizens. In the decades following World
War II, Puerto Rico emerged as one of the world's fastest-growing
economies. From 1950 to 1970 per capita income nearly doubled as a
percentage of the U.S. average, making the island the richest
economy in Latin America. Since the mid-1970s, however, labor force
attachment has declined, economic growth has slowed, and the
island's living standards have fallen further behind those on the
mainland. Today more than half of all Puerto Rican children live
below the U.S. poverty level. Why did Puerto Rico's economic
progress stall? And more important, what can be done to restore
growth? A number of overlapping concerns-labor supply and demand,
entrepreneurship, the fiscal situation, financial markets, and
trade--are at the heart of its economic difficulties. This is a
companion volume to Restoring Growth: The Economy of Puerto Rico
(Brookings, 2006), in which economists from Puerto Rico and the
United States examine the island's economy and propose strategies
for sustainable growth. This monograph summarizes the analyses
published in that volume and presents a set of policy
recommendations to increase employment, improve education, upgrade
infrastructure, and fix government finances. Contributors include
James Alm (Georgia State University), Barry P. Bosworth and Gary
Burtless (Brookings Institution), Susan M. Collins (Brookings
Institution and Georgetown University), Steven J. Davis (University
of Chicago), Maria E. Enchautegui, Juan Lara, Luis A. Rivera-
Batiz, and Orlando Sotomayor (University of Puerto Rico), Richard
B. Freeman and Robert Z. Lawrence (Harvard University), Helen F.
Ladd (Duke University), Rita Maldonado-Bear and Ingo Walter (New
York University), Francisco L. Rivera-Batiz (Columbia University),
and Miguel A. Soto-Class (Center for the New Economy). "
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