Public Investment and Fiscal Adjustment in Latin American Countries
Martner and Tromben consider the solutions which may reverse the decline of public investment occurred in Latin American countries in recent decades. The paper examines public investment trends and notes that in fiscal consolidation episodes there has been a bias against public investment – although this cannot be generalised to all countries. In some countries, the fall in public investment has taken alarming dimensions. The paper evaluates the solutions which can fill the infrastructure gap without endangering fiscal sustainability. It evaluates the golden rule and the broad adoption of the accounting principles of the Government Finance Statistics Manual. However, both these solutions present some problems in the Latin American context. Martner and Tromben also evaluate the exclusion of public enterprise operations from fiscal targets, in line with EU practice, and the role of Public Private Partnerships. They stress the importance of fiscal frameworks based on structural indicators, which can limit the need for painful fiscal consolidations. Finally, they examine the possibility to expand the role of multilateral development banks.
Cyclical Indicators of Fiscal Policy in Latin American Countries (with Special Reference to Chile)
Martner critically assesses the fiscal rules which have been established in most Latin American countries in recent years, pointing out that, except in the case of Chile, no mechanisms exist to ensure counter-cyclical fiscal policies. For some selected countries the author estimates the cyclical balances, taking into account the cyclical revenue of state-owned oil firms. He finds that, even if the tax burden in Latin American countries is low by OECD standards, the high volatility of commodity prices and GDP causes large fluctuations in the cyclical component of budget balances. This suggests that the potential gains from adopting counter cyclical rules, such as that introduced in Chile in 2000, are significant. Finally, Martner describes Chile’s successful experience with a rule requiring a surplus of 1 per cent of GDP on its structural budget, including the structural income from the extraction of copper, assessed on the basis of its estimated long-term price.
La inseguridad jurídica en normas de contratación estatal
It is established by different studies that the issue of government procurement has been marred by several factors, the test objective to publicize these factors, we take as starting point the constant conflict between the branches of government to try and organize this subject; will collect and analyze diverse regulatory and case material in order to achieve evidence and demonstrate the different concepts of constant change that produces excessive regulation of the subject procurement and is in turn causing rapid changes that result in legal uncertainty for our law on the Contract Status.