Resumen de Economic development of 8 latin american countries, 1950-2021: Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Cuba, Mexico, Peru, And Venezuela Author & abstra
María del Carmen Guisán Seijas
We analyse the evolution of economic development in 8 Latin American countries for the period 1950-2021, including the 7 most populated countries and Cuba.
The 3 top positions corresponded to Venezuela, Argentina and Cuba in 1950 and to Chile, Argentina and Mexico in year 2021. We analyse the impact of Manufacturing, Education and Indicators of Quality of Government and Freedom in the evolution of this countries. While Education is usually a necessary factor of development it is not always sufficient, and the countries require enough level of other factors, particularly need a mix of Political Stability and Freedom (economic, labour, social). In the comparison among 8 Latin American countries, the levels of the Indicator of Freedom show a very positive impact, with important increases of Production per capita in countries and periods with the highest values of Freedom, as it has happened for the period 1990-2021 with the highest values of this indicator, and the highest rates of increase of real Gross Domestic Product per capita, in Chile, Peru and Colombia. The lowest indicators of Freedom correspond to Venezuela and Cuba. Mexico has experienced a high increase for the period 1950-1980 and a slower average rate of growth for the period 1980-2021.
Venezuela experienced increase for 1950-1980. decrease for 1980-1990. increase for 1990-2000 and decrease for 2000-2021. The other 6 countries have usually experienced slow growth for the period 1950-1990 and a higher increase for the period 1990-2021.
We compare the general evolution of these 8 Latin American countries with World average and with China and two European countries (France and Spain). We cite several empirical studies based on panel econometric models of Latin American countries and highlight the importance of Education, Political Stability and Freedom for the increase of industrial production, economic development and quality of life in Latin America.
