Strengthening Argentina's Integration into the Global Economy

Strengthening Argentina's Integration into the Global Economy
Author: Martha Martínez Licetti
Publisher: World Bank Publications
Total Pages: 173
Release: 2018-05-14
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1464812756

Integration into global markets can improve the efficiency of the Argentinian economy, providing opportunities for private investment to flourish and for the associated benefits to accrue to consumers. Among many policies that are important for integrating into the global economy, particularly relevant are trade, investment, and competition policies. They all share a common attribute: the capacity to shape the incentives of firms to improve resource allocation and to strengthen productivity while integrating into international markets. Once properly combined, investment, trade, and competition polices have mutually reinforcing relationships in the sense that growth dividends stemming from reforms in one policy area are reinforced when properly combined with reforms in the other two. Against this backdrop, this report follows a three-pronged approach. It presents a set of robust empirical analyses †“ drawing from both general and partial equilibrium exercises - to assess the potential impacts from trade, competition, and investment policy reforms. It offers a new comparative review of international experience with structural microeconomic reform programs to bring insights for Argentina’s design and sequencing of such reforms. Finally, it presents individual reform recommendations for each institution in charge of the three respective policy areas in an integrated step-by-step framework from the firm perspective to illustrate the critical challenges to investment and internationalization for Argentinian firms.

Trade Reforms, Market Access and Poverty in Argentina

Trade Reforms, Market Access and Poverty in Argentina
Author: Guido G. Porto
Publisher: World Bank Publications
Total Pages: 36
Release: 2003
Genre: Argentina
ISBN:

Much of the literature that studies the relationship between trade and poverty in developing countries focuses on the effects of national trade reforms, such as own tariff reductions. In contrast, the World Trade Organization negotiations at the Doha Round were more concerned with the poverty effects on low-income countries, and of foreign reforms, such as the elimination of agricultural subsidies in industrial economies. The author empirically compares the relative poverty impacts of national and foreign trade reforms in Argentina. The author investigates national trade reforms, including tariff cuts on consumption goods and capital goods in Argentina. Foreign trade reforms include the elimination, in industrial countries, of agricultural subsidies and trade barriers on agricultural manufactures and industrial manufactures. These policies enhance the market access of Argentine exports. Overall, a combination of own reforms and enhanced market access would cause poverty to decline by between 1.7 and 4.6 percentage points. This evidence suggests that trade policies can be important poverty-reducing instruments in Argentina.

Agriculture and Economic Growth in an Open Economy--the Case of Argentina

Agriculture and Economic Growth in an Open Economy--the Case of Argentina
Author: Domingo Cavallo
Publisher: Intl Food Policy Res Inst
Total Pages: 168
Release: 1982
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 9780896290372

Research report on the role of the agricultural sector in overall economic growth in Argentina from 1940-1971 - explains the econometric model used for analysing the functoning of a market economy; studies effects of trade liberalization, exchange rate policies and domestic taxation, public investment and Terms of Trade, production functions, consumer expenditure, etc. Bibliography and graphs.

Argentina

Argentina
Author: International Monetary Fund. Western Hemisphere Dept.
Publisher: International Monetary Fund
Total Pages: 91
Release: 2017-12-29
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 148433583X

This paper discusses whether there is a more efficient way of taxing labor in Argentina that has a minimal cost in terms of foregone revenues. Social security contributions for dependent workers are generally high in Argentina, despite the plethora of different regimes and exceptions. A reform of labor taxation in Argentina would need to address these inefficiencies. Reducing the tax wedge would stimulate employment and formalization, especially if targeted to low-paid workers, as there is evidence that it’s their employment that mostly responds to tax incentives. Argentina’s tax and transfer system appears to be less progressive than the estimated optimal one. The simulations suggest that the proposed changes would have a positive impact on economic activity and formality, with a minor cost in terms of foregone revenues. Greater labor supply and wages in the formal sector push up revenue from labor taxation, compensating part of the direct cost of the reform.