Understanding Latin America's Economy in the Twenty-First Century

A comprehensive, comparative, and regionwide perspective on Latin American economic development spanning the last twenty-five years.

Latin America’s economic performance is often depicted as a long sequence of repeated failures, including its contribution to global financial crises as well as its slow growth and intractable inequalities. Its experience in the twenty-first century, however, reveals considerable and underappreciated successes. Understanding those successes—as well as setbacks—is critical to understanding both the region’s prospects and the rapidly changing global economic order.

Jeff Dayton-Johnson’s Understanding Latin America’s Economy in the Twenty-First Century provides a comprehensive, comparative, and region-wide perspective on Latin American economic development that spans the last quarter century.

The book is organized in three parts. The first introduces and summarizes Latin America’s economic history over the long term (the past five centuries) and the immediate past (the last half of the twentieth century). The second analyzes economic growth during the twenty-first century, emphasizing the role of China’s roaring demand for Latin American commodity exports. The third part assesses three fundamental characteristics of Latin American economic development in this century: the pros and cons of the commodity boom, the reasons behind the surprising decline in economic inequality, and the emergence of left-leaning and center-right governments that opted for pragmatic and orthodox macro policies mixed with innovative antipoverty programs.

This is an economics book for specialists and non-specialists alike, leaning heavily on economic concepts and models while introducing and explaining its subject for a broad readership. It is aimed at undergraduate and masters level students in Latin American studies, international relations, development studies, political science, economics, and other social sciences as well as readers beyond academia who are eager to understand Latin America and the global economy.

Jeff Dayton-Johnson is the vice president for academic affairs and the dean of the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey. He is the author of Latin America’s Emerging Middle Classes: Economic Perspectives.