The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) is holding a two-day seminar on development challenges in Latin America and the Caribbean starting today at its headquarters in Washington, DC.
A statement from the bank said the seminar, themed “Development Challenges in Latin America and the Caribbean: What are the Issues?” is the fourth annual gathering of the Bank’s Development Challenges Network.
Leading experts from academia, governments and development institutions will attend seven sessions over the two days and address topics, including links between educational achievement and growth, alcohol consumption and crime, innovation policy and environmental taxes.
Other issues to be discussed include the impact of financial integration, the implications of behavioural economics for tax policy and how the analysis of trade policy must take into account the greatly varying characteristics of firms within as well as across countries
.
The statement said that some of the insights to be presented are: banking integration does not synchronise countries’ business cycles; while there is strong evidence that tax and age-based restrictions on alcohol availability reduce crime, this cannot be said for restrictions on lo
cations and hours; policies to foster innovation can be largely negated by the unintended consequences of a corporate income tax; and low educational achievement as measured by national and international tests explains much of Latin America’s slow growth in comparison to other regions.
