Analysis of Latin America's economy focusing on development, covering the colonial roots of inequality, boom and bust cycles, labor markets, and fiscal and monetary policy. Latin America is richly endowed with natural resources, fertile land, and vibrant cultures. Yet the region remains much poorer than its neighbors to the north. Most Latin American countries have not achieved standards of living and stable institutions comparable to those found in developed countries, have experienced repeated boom-bust cycles, and remain heavily reliant on primary commodities. This book studies the historical roots of Latin America's contemporary economic and social development, focusing on poverty and income inequality dating back to colonial times. It addresses today's legacies of the market-friendly reforms that took hold in the 1980s and 1990s by examining successful stabilizations and homemade monetary and fiscal institutional reforms. It offers a detailed analysis of trade and financial liberalization, twenty–first century-growth, and the decline in poverty and income inequality. Finally, the book offers an overall analysis of inclusive growth policies for development—including gender issues and the informal sector—and the challenges that lie ahead for the region, with special attention to pressing demands by the vibrant and vocal middle class, youth unemployment, and indigenous populations.

This book is a compilation of some of the most remarkable contributions made by scientists currently working in Latin America to the understanding of virus biology, the pathogenesis of virus-related diseases, virus epidemiology, vaccine trials and antivirals development. In addition to recognizing the many fine virologists working in Latin America, Human Virology in Latin America also discusses both the state-of-the-art research and the current challenges that are being faced in the region, in hopes of inspiring young scientists worldwide to become eminent virologists.

The different challenges posed by the growth of biotechnology have been keenly felt in Latin America. This work examines how biotechnology can be made to serve developing nations rather than provide another route for exploitation by First-World industry.

Recent decades have seen tremendous changes in Latin America's agricultural sector, resulting from a broad program of liberalization instigated under pressure from the United States, the IMF, and the World Bank. Tariffs have been lifted, agricultural markets have been opened and privatized, land reform policies have been restricted or eliminated, and the perspective has shifted radically toward exportation rather than toward the goal of feeding local citizens. Examining the impact of these transformations, the contributors to Food for the Few: Neoliberal Globalism and Biotechnology in Latin America paint a somber portrait, describing local peasant farmers who have been made responsible for protecting impossibly vast areas of biodiversity, or are forced to specialize in one genetically modified crop, or who become low-wage workers within a capitalized farm complex. Using dozens of examples such as these, the deleterious consequences are surveyed from the perspectives of experts in diverse fields, including anthropology, economics, geography, political science, and sociology. From Kathy McAfee's "Exporting Crop Biotechnology: The Myth of Molecular Miracles," to Liz Fitting's "Importing Corn, Exporting Labor: The Neoliberal Corn Regime, GMOs, and the Erosion of Mexican Biodiversity," Food for the Few balances disturbing findings with hopeful assessments of emerging grassroots alternatives. Surveying not only the Latin American conditions that led to bankruptcy for countless farmers but also the North's practices, such as the heavy subsidies implemented to protect North American farmers, these essays represent a comprehensive, keenly informed response to a pivotal global crisis.

Partial contents: review of previous studies (employ. impacts of biotechnologies in Latin America: coffee and cocoa in Costa Rica; biotechnology and the future of agricultural development in Mexico); methodological tools and approaches (agricultural biotech. in Latin America: studying its future impacts; biotechnology and agriculture in Brazil: social and economic impacts); integrating impact assessment data into decision-making (improving biotechnology research decision-making with better procedures and information; environmentally sound management of biotechnology in Latin America). Charts and tables.

The book summarizes the history of biological control in Latin America and the Caribbean. Few publications provide historical detail and the records are, therefore, fragmented until now. By bringing information together in this book, we offer a more complete picture of important developments in biological control on this continent. There are a wealth of text, tables and references about the history of such projects, and which were succesful and which failed. This will help plan future biocontrol projects. An overview is provided of the current situation in biological control for many Latin American and Caribbean countries, revealing an astonishing level of practical biological control applied in the regio, making it the largest area under biological control worldwide. The final part describes new developments and speculates about the future of biological control in Latin America and the Caribbean.

In the form of a sociological pilgrimage, this book approaches some topics essential to understanding the role of science in Latin America, juxtaposing several approaches and exploring three main lines: First, the production and use of knowledge in these countries, viewed from a historical and sociological point of view; second, the reciprocal construction of scientific and public problems, presented through significant cases such as Latin American Chagas Disease; and third, the past and present asymmetries affecting the relationships between centers and peripheries in scientific research. These topics show the paradox of being at the same time "modern" and "peripheral."

Studies challenging the idea that technology and science flow only from global North to South. The essays in this volume study the creation, adaptation, and use of science and technology in Latin America. They challenge the view that scientific ideas and technology travel unchanged from the global North to the global South—the view of technology as “imported magic.” They describe not only alternate pathways for innovation, invention, and discovery but also how ideas and technologies circulate in Latin American contexts and transnationally. The contributors' explorations of these issues, and their examination of specific Latin American experiences with science and technology, offer a broader, more nuanced understanding of how science, technology, politics, and power interact in the past and present. The essays in this book use methods from history and the social sciences to investigate forms of local creation and use of technologies; the circulation of ideas, people, and artifacts in local and global networks; and hybrid technologies and forms of knowledge production. They address such topics as the work of female forensic geneticists in Colombia; the pioneering Argentinean use of fingerprinting technology in the late nineteenth century; the design, use, and meaning of the XO Laptops created and distributed by the One Laptop per Child Program; and the development of nuclear energy in Argentina, Mexico, and Chile. Contributors Pedro Ignacio Alonso, Morgan G. Ames, Javiera Barandiarán, João Biehl, Anita Say Chan, Amy Cox Hall, Henrique Cukierman, Ana Delgado, Rafael Dias, Adriana Díaz del Castillo H., Mariano Fressoli, Jonathan Hagood, Christina Holmes, Matthieu Hubert, Noela Invernizzi, Michael Lemon, Ivan da Costa Marques, Gisela Mateos, Eden Medina, María Fernanda Olarte Sierra, Hugo Palmarola, Tania Pérez-Bustos, Julia Rodriguez, Israel Rodríguez-Giralt, Edna Suárez Díaz, Hernán Thomas, Manuel Tironi, Dominique Vinck

Activist Biology is the story of a group of biologists at the National Museum in Rio de Janeiro who joined the drive to renew the Brazilian nation, claiming as their weapon the voice of their fledgling field. It offers a portrait of science as a creative and transformative pathway. This book will intrigue anyone fascinated by environmental history and Latin American political and social life in the 1920s and 1930s.

The aim of this book is to analyze the quality of entrepreneurial management and economic development in the Latin American region from a microeconomic point of view. It seeks to explain the Latin American way of business management as well as envision ways in which Latin American businesses can increase productivity and innovation in order to successfully compete in the global market. Latin America comprises nearly 8.5% of the global population and represents over 8% of the global GDP, yet it is home to only 12 (or less than 2.5%) of the world’s 500 largest companies. In this volume, the author analyzes the unique dynamics of Latin American corporate culture to consider the particular obstacles to more successful performance. Drawing evidence from dozens of companies across the eight largest Latin American economies, he notes that Latin American companies have evolved in the context of a highly aristocratic and oligarchic society, dominated by patriarchal families from the upper classes. Corporate structure, especially in family-owned companies, is based largely on patronage and privilege and often characterized by unnecessary hierarchy, redundant responsibilities and poor communication and information management systems. Operating in relative isolation, with little incentive to invest in innovation to compete against foreign products has reinforced this conservative culture. Taking a fresh perspective that focuses at the firm level, with an emphasis on corporate administration, the author presents a compelling explanation for Latin America’s delay in economic development and offers insights for promoting innovation and entrepreneurship, identifying promising industrial sectors and improving productivity and competitiveness on the global stage.