Latin America: The Post-Pandemic Decade. Conversations with 16 Latin American Economists

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Foreword Introduction Ilan Goldfajn and Eduardo Levy Yeyati The Latin American pandemic Ilan Goldfajn and Eduardo Levy Yeyati Section I Avoiding the next crisis “The pandemic can be used as a cover for wasteful spending” Laura Alfaro “QE in advanced economies does not provide a convincing argument for monetary financing in emerging ones” Roberto Chang “Even moderate increases in interest rates may be a cause of concern for fiscal sustainability” José de Gregorio “Good results are the best guarantee of central bank independence” Federico Sturzenegger Section II Policies for sustainable growth “Evidence suggests inequality and low productivity growth are intertwined” Mauricio Cárdenas “Social discontent can be easily mobilised to immobilise public policy” Marcela Eslava “Lack of progress cannot be solved by a redistributive strategy” Ricardo Hausmann “I have strong doubts about the possibility of having successful industrial policies in the region” Rodrigo Valdés “The international financial community should rethink its risk tolerance” Alejandro Werner Section III Social challenges ahead “The pandemic packed a triple inequality-increasing punch” Francisco Ferreira “Replacing existing targeted programmes with a UBI would leave the poor worse off” Nora Lustig “The pandemic showed the importance of transitory poverty in the determination of coverage for social programmes” Eric Parrado Section IV The future of democracy in Latin America “Societies are experiencing radical political fractures; Latin American countries are no exception” Edmar Bacha “My bold prediction is that we will end up reinventing social democracy” Armínio Fraga “In Chile, the middle class is ‘too rich for the state and too poor for the market’” Andrea Repetto “Colombia, Peru and Chile are entering a populist phase from which it will not be easy to escape” Andrés Velasco