Latin America

For policymakers to bolster the global competitiveness of their nations and regions, they first must know where they stand. This report benchmarks the 182 regions of Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Peru, and the United States using 13 commonly available indicators of strength in the knowledge economy, in globalization, and in innovation capacity.

Stephen Ezell gave a presentation at the 43rd Congress of the Brazilian Intellectual Property Association (ABPI) on how Brazil can advance its competitiveness in innovation-based industries.

Stephen Ezell joins the program at HigherHeight 2022, hosted by Pfizer Indonesia and the Indonesian Biotechnology Study Program Association (IPSBI), to discuss what Indonesia can learn from Mexico’s experiences in building up its life sciences innovation ecosystem.

If Latin America wants to avoid this fate, it needs to make a key decision: does it want to look east to China or north to the United States. The United States is leading the world in efforts to get China to roll back its unfair, mercantilist trade and economic policies. But that task will be much harder if the region sides with China or avoids the fight altogether and sits on the sidelines.

Before policymakers can act, there needs to be a consensus that there is a problem, and a role for policy in solving it. When it comes to competitiveness, too many in Washington don’t recognize this.

Colombia faces significant political, social, and economic hurdles in building its digital economy, yet its progress toward developing a robust strategy deserves recognition. It has an opportunity to be a trailblazer and regional role model.

Citizens and businesses rely on government websites to access important information and services. Unfortunately, many Colombian government websites fail to meet basic website standards for security, speed, mobile friendliness, and accessibility.

Colombian citizens and businesses use government websites every day to find important information and access public services, and so it is important for those websites to meet basic standards for security, speed, mobile friendliness, or accessibility. According to a new report[RC1] released jointly today by two leading think tanks, the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF) and TicTac, Colombian government agencies have opportunities to modernize their sites by further investing in cybersecurity, mobile-friendly web design, and cloud-based hosting.

Europe is trying to get other nations, including in Latin America, to adopt its regulatory regime in order to reduce its own competitive disadvantage.

Brazilian economic growth has been faltering steadily for years, from an average growth rate of 4.5% from 2006 to 2010, to 2.1% from 2011, to just 1.1% in 2017 and 2018. To say that Brazil’s economy needs a short in the arm is an understatement.