Venezuela Before Chávez: Anatomy of an Economic Collapse

by Ricardo Hausmann (Editor), Francisco R. Rodríguez (Editor)

Overview

At the beginning of the twentieth century, Venezuela had one of the poorest economies in Latin America, but by 1970 it had become the richest country in the region and one of the twenty richest countries in the world, ahead of countries such as Greece, Israel, and Spain. Between 1978 and 2001, however, Venezuela’s economy went sharply in reverse, with non-oil GDP declining by almost 19 percent and oil GDP by an astonishing 65 percent. What accounts for this drastic turnabout? The editors of Venezuela Before Chávez, who each played a policymaking role in the country’s economy during the past two decades, have brought together a group of economists and political scientists to examine systematically the impact of a wide range of factors affecting the economy’s collapse, from the cost of labor regulation and the development of financial markets to the weakening of democratic governance and the politics of decisions about industrial policy.

Aside from the editors, the contributors are Omar Bello, Adriana Bermúdez, Matías Braun, Javier Corrales, Jonathan Di John, Rafael Di Tella, Javier Donna, Samuel Freije, Dan Levy, Robert MacCulloch, Osmel Manzano, Francisco Monaldi, María Antonia Moreno, Daniel Ortega, Michael Penfold, José Pineda, Lant Pritchett, Cameron A. Shelton, and Dean Yang.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780271056326
Publisher:	Penn State University Press
Publication date:	06/15/2015
Pages:	488
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

Ricardo Hausmann is Professor of the Practice of Economic Development and Director of the Center for International Development at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government. He served as Venezuela’s Minister of Planning in 1992–93.

Francisco R. Rodríguez is Chief Andean Economist at Bank of America Merrill Lynch. From 2000 to 2004 he served as Chief Economist of the Venezuelan National Assembly.

Table of Contents

Contents

List of Figures

List of Tables

Chapter 1: Introduction Ricardo Hausmann and Francisco Rodríguez

Chapter 2: Why Did Venezuelan Growth Collapse?

Ricardo Hausmann and Francisco Rodríguez

Chapter 3: Venezuela After A Century of Oil Exploitation

Osmel Manzano

Chapter 4: Public Investment and Productivity Growth in the Venezuelan Manufacturing Industry

José Pineda and Francisco Rodríguez

Chapter 5: The Incidence of Labor Market Reforms on Employment in the Venezuelan Manufacturing Sector 1995–2001

Omar Bello and Adriana Bermúdez

Chapter 6: Understanding Economic Growth in Venezuela: 1970–2005

The Real Effects of a Financial Collapse

Matías Braun

Chapter 7: Much Higher Schooling, Much Lower Wages: Human Capital and Economic Collapse in Venezuela

Daniel Ortega and Lant Pritchett

Chapter 8: Income Distribution and Redistribution in Venezuela

Samuel Freije

Chapter 9: Competing for Jobs or Creating Jobs? The Impact of Immigration on Native-Born Unemployment in Venezuela, 1980-2003

Dan Levy and Dean Yang

Chapter 10: Sleeping in the Bed One Makes: The Venezuelan Fiscal Policy Response to the Oil Boom

María Antonia Moreno and Cameron A. Shelton

Chapter 11: Institutional Collapse: The Rise and Decline of Democratic Governance in Venezuela

Francisco Monaldi and Michael Penfold

Chapter 12: The Political Economy of Industrial Policy in Venezuela

Jonathan Di John

Chapter 13: Explaining Chavismo: The Unexpected Alliance of Radical Leftists and the Military in Venezuela under Hugo Chávez

Javier Corrales

Chapter 14: Oil, Macro Volatility and Crime in the Determination of Beliefs in Venezuela

Rafael Di Tella, Javier Donna, and Robert MacCulloch

Chapter 15: Understanding the Collapse: Venezuela’s Experience in Cross-National Perspective

Ricardo Hausmann and Francisco Rodríguez

List of Contributors

Index

Editorial Reviews

“This objective and expert evaluation of the Venezuelan economy will become an indispensable reference for any future debates on the legacy of the Chávez era.”

—Moisés Naím,author of The End of Power

“Venezuela Before Chávez is not just a product of scrupulous academic research. It is also, as the authors understand—and as present circumstances in the country attest—a helpful and coherent guide for those who devise policies and make decisions in a country so reliant on oil.”

—Michael Shifter ReVista Magazine

“This is a fine book on Venezuela and its economic and sociopolitical problems during the 20 years preceding the beginning, in 1999, of the Hugo Chávez Frías administration. . . . The story that unfolds in this excellent contribution to the literature is a good one, and the book is likely to become essential reading for understanding Venezuela’s economic decline during the last two decades of the twentieth century.”

—Brian McBeth Hispanic American Historical Review

From the Publisher