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Latin America: An End to Boom and Bust? covers prospects in that region, which has managed to sustain a decade of prosperity after a history of boom and bust cycles. In our cover story, Nicolás Eyzaguirre, Director of the IMF's Western Hemisphere Department, says Latin America has the potential to become an increasingly important global player. But boosting productivity and competitiveness remain key policy challenges and the fruits of success must be more broadly shared. Other articles on our cover theme look at the prospects for Brazil, inequality in Latin America, and how to raise productivity. Turning from Latin America, we interview former IMF Managing Director Michel Camdessus, former IMF MD and now head of a group of luminaries tasked with generating ideas on how to make the global monetary system more stable in the wake of the world financial crisis. This issue of F&D also features articles on financial market cycles, public investment in infrastructure, whether to worry about inflation or deflation, democracy and liberalization, how to manage health care spending, and rising food prices. People in Economics profiles growth guru Robert Solow, winner of the 1987 Nobel Prize in economics. Our regular Back to Basics feature explains financial services. Data Spotlight looks at how access to financial services is growing in developing countries; and Picture This highlights the IMF's new database of public debt since 1880.

Economic stabilization --- Economic development --- Adjustment, Economic --- Business stabilization --- Economic adjustment --- Stabilization, Economic --- Economic policy --- International cooperation --- Latin America --- Asociación Latinoamericana de Libre Comercio countries --- Neotropical region --- Neotropics --- New World tropics --- Spanish America --- Economic conditions --- E-books --- Inflation --- Macroeconomics --- Public Finance --- Industries: Financial Services --- Production and Operations Management --- Price Level --- Deflation --- National Government Expenditures and Health --- Financial Institutions and Services: Government Policy and Regulation --- National Government Expenditures and Related Policies: Infrastructures --- Other Public Investment and Capital Stock --- National Government Expenditures and Related Policies: General --- Public finance & taxation --- Finance --- Monetary economics --- Banking --- Health care spending --- Financial services --- Public investment spending --- Expenditure --- Expenditures, Public --- Prices --- Financial services industry --- Public investments --- Business cycles --- Brazil

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En “El impulso de la clase media en África” se destaca que cada vez es más evidente que el reciente aumento del bienestar económico del continente puede ser duradero. En el artículo central, el profesor de Harvard Calestous Juma señala que se ha hecho hincapié durante demasiado tiempo en erradicar la pobreza en lugar de promover la prosperidad mediante el desarrollo de infraestructura, educación técnica, espíritu de empresa y comercio. Esto está cambiando: se está dando ahora más importancia a las políticas que impulsan el desarrollo de la clase media. Aunque la nueva clase media en África quizá no tenga el poder adquisitivo de la de Occidente, genera una demanda suficiente de bienes y servicios para respaldar un crecimiento económico más vigoroso, lo que, como señala la Directora del Departamento de África del FMI, Antoinette Sayeh, ayuda, a su vez, a los grupos más pobres de la sociedad. El economista de la Universidad de Oxford Paul Collier analiza un componente esencial de la infraestructura que África necesita: los ferrocarriles. Es un continente apto para el ferrocarril, cuyo desarrollo se ha frenado por razones políticas más que económicas. Sin embargo, aunque los países de África subsahariana están prosperando, el desempeño de la economía más grande y más importante de la región, Sudáfrica, ha sido anémico en los últimos años. También trazamos una semblanza de la zarina económica de Nigeria, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala. En “Bajo la lupa” se analizan las tendencias actuales para predecir cómo será África dentro de medio siglo y en “Un vistazo a las cifras” se examina el desarrollo del comercio regional en África. En otro artículo, el Profesor de Cornell Eswar Prasad analiza cómo han cambiado los tiempos para las economías emergentes que ahora están mostrando una mayor capacidad de resistencia ante la crisis económica mundial que las economías avanzadas. John Quiggin de la Universidad de Queensland, autor de Zombie Economics, examina si tiene sentido en muchos casos vender empresas públicas. Los economistas Raghuram Rajan, de la Universidad de Chicago, y Rodney Ramcharan, de la Reserva Federal de Estados Unidos, hallan pistas para explicar los ciclos actuales de auge y caída de los precios de los activos en la evolución del precio de las tierras de cultivo de Estados Unidos hace un siglo.

Middle class --- Economic stabilization --- Adjustment, Economic --- Business stabilization --- Economic adjustment --- Stabilization, Economic --- Economic policy --- Bourgeoisie --- Commons (Social order) --- Middle classes --- Social classes --- International cooperation. --- Social conditions --- Africa --- Eastern Hemisphere --- Economic conditions --- Exports and Imports --- Finance: General --- Macroeconomics --- Public Finance --- Commodity Markets --- General Financial Markets: General (includes Measurement and Data) --- National Government Expenditures and Related Policies: General --- Education: General --- National Government Expenditures and Education --- Public finance & taxation --- Finance --- International economics --- Investment & securities --- Commodity prices --- Expenditure --- Education --- Emerging and frontier financial markets --- Commodities --- Expenditures, Public --- Prices --- Financial services industry --- Commercial products --- South Africa

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'Wising Up to the Costs of Aging' looks at how falling fertility and rising life expectancy have combined to threaten the ability of many countries to provide a decent standard of living for the old without imposing a crushing burden on the young. In our lead article, Ronald Lee and Andrew Mason say that while population aging in rich industrial countries as well as in some middle- and lower-income countries will challenge public and private budgets in many ways, a combination of reduced consumption, postponed retirement, increased asset holdings, and greater investment in human capital should make it possible to meet this challenge without catastrophic consequences. Neil Howe and Richard Jackson publish a fascinating ranking of which countries are best and worst prepared to meet the needs of the growing wave of retirees. We also have articles on a broad range of current topics, including Middle East unemployment, the economic repercussions of the earthquake and devastating tsunami in Japan, and banking in offshore financial centers such as the Cayman Islands. Carmen Reinhart and Jacob Kirkegaard look at how governments are finding ways to manipulate markets to hold down the cost of financing huge public debts, and, in Straight Talk, the IMF's Min Zhu talks about the long-term challenges now facing emerging markets. Prakash Loungani speaks to Nobel Prize winner George Akerlof, and we discuss with three other laureates-Michael Spence, Joseph Stiglitz, and Robert Solow-what the global economic crisis has taught us. Back to Basics explains economic models, and Picture This highlights the great variations in the cost of sending money back home.

Population aging --- Economic stabilization --- International economic relations --- International finance --- International monetary system --- International money --- Finance --- Economic policy, Foreign --- Economic relations, Foreign --- Economics, International --- Foreign economic policy --- Foreign economic relations --- Interdependence of nations --- International economic policy --- International economics --- New international economic order --- Economic policy --- International relations --- Economic sanctions --- Adjustment, Economic --- Business stabilization --- Economic adjustment --- Stabilization, Economic --- Aging of population --- Aging population --- Aging society --- Demographic aging --- Graying (Demography) --- Greying (Demography) --- Age distribution (Demography) --- Economic aspects --- International cooperation --- E-books --- Banks and Banking --- Labor --- Macroeconomics --- Public Finance --- Demography --- Economics of the Elderly --- Economics of the Handicapped --- Non-labor Market Discrimination --- Debt --- Debt Management --- Sovereign Debt --- Interest Rates: Determination, Term Structure, and Effects --- General Financial Markets: General (includes Measurement and Data) --- Foreign Exchange --- Population & demography --- Labour --- income economics --- Public finance & taxation --- Currency --- Foreign exchange --- Aging --- Public debt --- Real interest rates --- Emerging and frontier financial markets --- Population and demographics --- Financial services --- Financial markets --- Debts, Public --- Interest rates --- Financial services industry --- United States

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Economic stagnation in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) has led several economists to question the region’s ability to attain sustained economic growth, some of them arguing for the need to shift away from natural resource - based exports. Yet, we find that low growth has not been common to all SSA countries and that those that achieved political stability and significantly liberalized their economies experienced high growth in income per capita, as high as ASEAN-5 countries. This group of SSA countries attained high growth while maintaining their specialization in natural resource exports. Our analysis also rejects the hypothesis of reverse causality: that good growth performance allowed countries to attain political stability or liberalize their economies.

Economic development --- Free trade --- Economic stabilization --- Adjustment, Economic --- Business stabilization --- Economic adjustment --- Stabilization, Economic --- Economic policy --- Free trade and protection --- Trade, Free --- Trade liberalization --- International trade --- Development, Economic --- Economic growth --- Growth, Economic --- Economics --- Statics and dynamics (Social sciences) --- Development economics --- Resource curse --- Africa --- Politics and government. --- E-books --- Investments: Commodities --- Exports and Imports --- Macroeconomics --- Natural Resources --- Macroeconomic Analyses of Economic Development --- Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity: General --- Economic History: Macroeconomics --- Growth and Fluctuations: Africa --- Oceania --- Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics --- Environmental and Ecological Economics: General --- Personal Income, Wealth, and Their Distributions --- Neoclassical Models of Trade --- Trade: General --- Commodity Markets --- International economics --- Environmental management --- Investment & securities --- Natural resources --- Personal income --- Comparative advantage --- Exports --- Commodities --- Environment --- National accounts --- Income --- Commercial products --- Botswana