 | | Marco V. Sánchez, Economic Affairs Officer, Development Policy Analysis Division, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, United Nations | | | During the past two decades, trade regimes in Latin America
have been reformed to facilitate export-led growth, in the expectation
that the benefits of this growth would eventually trickle down and thereby
help the poor. These goals have been achieved to differing degrees. Their
accomplishment has depended not only upon the effectiveness of the trade
policy reforms but also upon exchange-rate policy, external shocks and
remittance inflows. Technological change has also been crucial when it
comes to capitalizing on the benefits of the reforms. These assertions are
substantiated using simulation results from a computable general equilibrium
model solved with data for Costa Rica, El Salvador and Honduras. The
model is combined with a microsimulation methodology to capture the full
distributive implications of simulated policy and external shocks. | |
