Latin America suffered a profound state crisis in the 1980s, which prompted not only the wave of macroeconomic and deregulation reforms known as the Washington Consensus, but also a wide variety of institutional or 'second generation' reforms. 'The State of State Reform in Latin America' reviews and assesses the outcomes of these less studied institutional reforms.This book examines four major areas of institutional reform: a. political institutions and the state organization; b. fiscal institutions, such as budget, tax and decentralization institutions; c. public institutions in charge of sectoral economic policies (financial, industrial, and infrastructure); and d. social sector institutions (pensions, social protection, and education). In each of these areas, the authors summarize the reform objectives, describe and measure their scope, assess the main outcomes, and identify the obstacles for implementation, especially those of an institutional nature.
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Declaring the past couple decades as an era of silent revolution for state institutions in Latin America, Lora (principal adviser, Research Department, Inter-American Development Bank) presents 12 papers reviewing and assessing key aspects of institutional reform. Each paper focuses on a particular area of institutional reform, summarizing the objectives of the reform, describing and measuring their scope, and identifying obstacles to their implementation and effectiveness, and comparing and contrasting reforms and their results for the different Latin American countries. Individual chapters focus on political reform, judicial reform, public administration and public employment reform, budgetary institutions, tax reform, fiscal and political decentralization, privatization and regulation, financial reforms, productive development policies and supporting institutions, pension and social assistance systems, and educational reform. Co-published by Stanford U. Press. Annotation ©2007 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
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