Speaker:
William Maloney, Chief Economist for the Latin America and Caribbean region at the World Bank, will present the key findings of his new publication, Reclaiming the Lost Century of Growth: Building Learning Economies in Latin America and the Caribbean.
Discussant:
Eric Verhoogen | Professor of International and Public Affairs and of Economics | Co-Director, Center for Development Economics and Policy, Columbia University
Summary
Longstanding problems and new challenges often combine to require urgent solutions. Economic growth rates today in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) are low and have been so for too long. This translates into a lower quality of life for its people and limited prospects for its children. At the same time, the region faces the challenges of adapting to changes in the global trade order, seizing the opportunities of new technologies, and leveraging its vast resources for smart energy strategies. This volume argues that a central reason for the region’s tepid economic performance is its inability to “learn how to learn” about and how to exploit the new technologies that drive productivity and seed new areas of comparative advantage. For much of the past two centuries, LAC has been relatively slow at adopting technologies ranging from steamships to computers. This remains the case today, as seen in long adoption lags and incomplete use of even the technologies that have been adopted. Learning how to adopt new technologies is critical for the success of economies. Building the capacity to identify, adapt, and implement new technologies is also a critical complement to any successful industrial policy. This is becoming even more true as the accelerating adoption of artificial intelligence transforms how companies operate and how people work. Making changes to how one embraces new technologies can make a huge difference to the lives of citizens today and for their children tomorrow. There is no time to waste.
