"Latin American and Caribbean countries underperformance relative to other developing countries in terms of productivity growth has reflected on moderate average economic growth of the region over the last 15 years. Colombia is no exception."

"This paper revisits economic growth in Colombia using the growth diagnostics methodology proposed by Hausmann, Rodrik and Velasco (2005), with the purpose of identifying the most binding constraints for economic growth and the policies that, if implemented, can have the largest positive impact. To rank public policy priorities the HRV (2005) methodological approach is complemented with an econometric analysis of ...

"The purpose of this paper is to analyze Panama s growth strategy in light of the growth diagnostics methodology (GDM) developed by Hausmann, Rodrik and Velasco (2004). A thorough application of GDM requires more data than is available for Panama, especially in terms of factor prices and business surveys. Even if formal testing is not always feasible, GDM provides a careful and organized discussion of all possible ...

"Since 1979, Colombia s annual GDP growth has been on average two percentage pointslower than what was observed between 1950 and 1980. The sources-of-growth decomposition shows that this deceleration can be accounted entirely by changes in productivity. Indeed, between 1960 and 1980 productivity gains increased output per worker by nearly 1% per year. Since 1980, productivity losses have reduced output per worker at ...