Latin America’s Incomplete Liberalization Story
The region’s economies still revolve around commodities and low-productivity services. Better planning can help.
BUENOS AIRES—Latin America knows the recipe well: Open the economy. Expose firms to competition. Let the weakest disappear. Reallocate labor and capital. Grow faster. What usually remains vague is what comes next. Which sectors take over Which activities absorb labor, generate exports, and sustain middle-class incomes Efficiency can remove distortions. It does not, on its own, build a new productive structure. Latin America knows this, because many countries did liberalize over the last 30 years or so. They did deregulate. They did lower barriers and expose firms to global...
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