After mediocre growth in 2018 of 0.7 percent. LAC is expected to perform only marginally better in 2019 (growth of 0.9 percent) followed by a much more solid growth of 2.1 percent in 2020. LAC will face both internal and external challenges during 2019. On the domestic front. the recession in Argentina; a slower than expected recovery in Brazil from the 2014-2015 recession, anemic growth in Mexico. and the continued deterioration of Venezuela. present the biggest challenges. On the external front. the sharp drop in net capital inflows to the region since early 2018 and the monetary policy normalization in the United States stand among the greatest perils. Furthermore, the recent increase in poverty in Brazil because of the recession points to the large effects that the business cycle may have on poverty. The core of this report argues that social indicators that are very sensitive to the business cycle may yield a highly misleading picture of permanent social gains in the region.
Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award in Criticism The first comprehensive selection in any language of the non-fiction--much of it appearing here in English for the first time--of “one of literature’s most fertile and original minds” (San Francisco Chronicle) A Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition with flaps and deckle-edged paper It will come as a surprise to many readers that the greater part of Jorge Luis Borges’s extraordinary writing was not in the genres of fiction or poetry, but in various forms of non-fiction prose. His thousands of pages of essays, reviews, prologues, lectures, and notes on politics and culture—though revered in Latin America and Europe as among his finest work—have scarcely been translated into English. Selected Non-Fictions presents a Borges almost entirely unknown to American readers. Here is the dazzling metaphysician speculating on the nature of time and reality and the inventions of heaven and hell, and the almost superhumanly erudite reader of the world’s literatures, from Homer to Ray Bradbury, James Joyce to Lady Murasaki. Here, too, the political Borges, taking courageous stands against fascism, antisemitism, and the Perón dictatorship; Borges the movie critic, on King Kong and Citizen Kane and the Borgesian art of dubbing; and Borges the regular columnist for the Argentine equivalent of the Ladies’ Home Journal, writing hilarious book reviews and capsule biographies of modern writers. Like the Aleph in his famous story—the magical point in a basement in Buenos Aires from which one can view everything in the world—Borges’s non-fictions are a vortex for seemingly the entire universe: Dante and Ellery Queen, Shakespeare and the Kabbalah, the history of angels and the history of tango, the Buddha, Bette Davis, and the Dionne Quints. Selected Non-Fictions presents more than 160 of these astonishing writings, from his youthful manifestos to his last meditations on his favorite books. More than a hundred of these pieces have never before appeared in English, and all have been rendered in brilliant new translations by Esther Allen, Suzanne Jill Levine, and Eliot Weinberger. This unique selection presents Borges as at once a deceptively self-effacing guide to the universe and the inventor of a universe that is an indispensable guide to Borges. For more than seventy-five years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 2,000 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
Over the last decade, empirical studies analyzing macroeconomic conditions that may affect the size of government spending multipliers have flourished. Yet, in spite of their obvious public policy importance, little is known about public investment multipliers. In particular, the clear theoretical implication that public investment multipliers should be higher (lower) the lower (higher) is the initial stock of public capital has not, to the best of our knowledge, been tested. This paper tackles this empirical challenge and finds robust evidence in favor of the above hypothesis: countries with a low initial stock of public capital (as a proportion of GDP) have significantly higher public investment multipliers than countries with a high initial stock of public capital. This key finding seems robust to the sample (European countries, U.S. states, and Argentine provinces) and to the identification method (Blanchard-Perotti, forecast errors, and instrumental variables). Our results thus suggest that public investment in developing countries would carry high returns.
Provides a comprehensive overview of third language acquisition (additive multilingualism) in adulthood, an increasingly important subfield of language acquisition.
Provides a comprehensive overview of third language acquisition (additive multilingualism) in adulthood, an increasingly important subfield of language acquisition.
Non-Conventional Energy in North America: Current and Future Perspectives for Electricity Generation provides an analysis of the current state of non-conventional energy sources used in the United States and Canada. The book works through all non-conventional renewable energy power sources, such as solar, wind and nuclear, considers the associated pros and cons, their impact on society, the climate and the population, and their potential. As well as coverage on the amount of power generated from each source, this book considers various imposed policies and programs alongside public opinion to provide readers with an understanding of current and future potentials for sustainable energy. Readers in government, energy experts, economists, academics and scientists will find this book to be a great reference on which types of power generation they would like to develop in their regions to promote economic and social development. The book will equip readers with the knowledge to make future decisions to diversity the energy mix in their respective regions. Includes information on the different types of non-conventional energy sources in the USA and Canada, analyzing their impact on climate and the population Presents the pros and cons of each power generation technology, along with public opinion Features policy and programs currently in force in the USA and Canada on each type of non-conventional energy source
Social spending is a powerful tool to reduce poverty, achieve higher equality and better life conditions for the inhabitants of a country. In "Social Expenditure in Central America, Panama and the Dominican Republic: 2007-2013", a characterization of the different variables that have taken social expenditure to its current position is performed. During the economic crisis period, many governments of the region confront this situation with an increase in social expenditures. However, part of the increase was centered on inflexible items, particularly wages, which facilitated the increase in fiscal deficits and, consequently, on public debt. Thus, after the financial crisis, the fiscal situation has reduced governments' buffers to respond to economic shocks, which imply that we need to examine the fiscal policy given its rigidity, the scarcity of public resources and the institutional contract. The study of wage bill increases provides more information related to the causes of this dynamic, and allow us to offer recommendations to improve spending management without threatening public finances. A better use of resources could contribute to define a more efficient and equitable agenda for the countries in the region. Finally, something that was not deeply explored, as of today, is the institutional complexity and how this could facilitate, or hinder, the government's ability to express its fiscal policy, including the effectiveness in the use of public resources.
The two-volume set LNCS 3522 and 3523 constitutes the refereed proceedings of the Second Iberian Conference on Pattern Recognition and Image Analysis, IbPRIA 2005, held in Estoril, Portugal in June 2005. The 170 revised full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 292 submissions. The papers are organized in topical sections on computer vision, shape and matching, image and video processing, image and video coding, face recognition, human activity analysis, surveillance, robotics, hardware architectures, statistical pattern recognition, syntactical pattern recognition, image analysis, document analysis, bioinformatics, medical imaging, biometrics, speech recognition, natural language analysis, and applications.
Becoming Reinaldo Arenas explores the life and work of the Cuban writer Reinaldo Arenas (1943–1990), who emerged on the Latin American cultural scene in the 1960s and quickly achieved literary fame. Yet as a political dissident and an openly gay man, Arenas also experienced discrimination and persecution; he produced much of his work amid political controversy and precarious living conditions. In 1980, having survived ostracism and incarceration in Cuba, he arrived in the United States during the Mariel boatlift. Ten years later, after struggling with poverty and AIDS in New York, Arenas committed suicide. Through insightful close readings of a selection of Arenas's works, including unpublished manuscripts and correspondence, Olivares examines the writer's personal, political, and artistic trajectory, focusing on his portrayals of family, sexuality, exile, and nostalgia. He documents Arenas's critical engagement with cultural and political developments in revolutionary Cuba and investigates the ways in which Arenas challenged literary and national norms. Olivares's analysis shows how Arenas drew on his life experiences to offer revealing perspectives on the Cuban Revolution, the struggles of Cuban exiles, and the politics of sexuality.
As a flexible, cost-effective energy alternative to large scale nuclear power reactors, this book examines the potential future use of small modular reactors for the generation of electricity in different regions. Exploring advanced nuclear technologies, chapters describe the current situation and perspective of the small modular reactors market (SMRs) in different regions around the word, including North and South America, Europe, Asia, Middle East and Africa. Particular attention is paid to the benefits of using these types of reactors for the generation of electricity, discussing their efficiency and reduced construction time, as well as exploring the main difficulties encountered in the development stage. Looking at the potential dangers that SMRs pose to the environment and population, the text presents the new safety measures that have been adopted in SMRs design to reduce future risk.
An Economist Book of the Year, 2001. In the 18th century, a debate ensued over the French naturalist Buffon’s contention that the New World was in fact geologically new. Historians, naturalists, and philosophers clashed over Buffon’s view. This book maintains that the “dispute” was also a debate over historical authority: upon whose sources and facts should naturalists and historians reconstruct the history of the New World and its people. In addressing this question, the author offers a strikingly novel interpretation of the Enlightenment.
At present, the international community cannot be assured that the quality and, in particular the safety of tissues for transplants, is properly guaranteed in all countries and regions. Shortcomings of international and regional ethical rules and standards in the field of tissue banking, the lack of national ethical rules and standards in force in several countries, the lack of proper regulatory oversight and overall lack of harmonisation of existing ethical rules and standards, contribute to the problem.This book addresses the issues by promoting the adoption of an ethical policy and the use of a model code of ethics and a model code of practice as a reference for the tissue banking community, government agencies and policy-makers worldwide. This will facilitate the use of tissue processed in one country in any other country that needs it with the additional assurance of quality and safety that is lacking presently.
Latin America and the Caribbean continues to face adverse global headwinds: high interest rates, modest G-7 growth, soft commodity prices and uncertain prospects in China will all depress growth. Well-grounded policy responses have led to largely recovering employment and income losses from the pandemic and falling rates of inflation. However, the region faces the mutually reinforcing triple challenges of low growth, limited fiscal space, and citizen dissatisfaction. Expanding digital connectivity offers a possibility to make progress on all three fronts. To maximize the social benefits of connectivity as well as to ensure that it does not exacerbate spatial, educational, gender or racial inequalities, three challenges are important to address: first, expanding coverage to the remaining unconnected areas as well as improving the quality of service; second, increasing the productive use of existing infrastructure, and; third, as with any other infrastructure "hardware," investments in "software" - such as digital and traditional skills, managerial capabilities, supportive regulatory frameworks, and deeper financial markets are critical.
Cover -- Copyright -- Contents -- List of Figures -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction: Film, Religion, and the Desarrollismo Period -- 1 Lighting Sainthood in the Time of Technocracy -- 2 Praying for Development in Post-Vatican II Comedies -- 3 Gender and Modernization in Nun Films -- 4 Narratives of Suspicion: Religion in the Nuevo Cine Español -- Conclusion: Spanish Cinema at the Intersection of Religion and Politics -- Notes -- Filmography -- Works Cited -- Index
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