Understanding the Poverty Impact of the Global Financial Crisis in Latin America and the Caribbean
Any time there is an economic crisis; there is the very real potential that its consequences for human welfare will be severe. Thus when the developed world plunged into such a crisis in 2008 and growth rates in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC...
Main Authors: | , , |
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Language: | English en_US |
Published: |
Washington, DC: World Bank
2014
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Subjects: | |
Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2014/06/19702913/understanding-poverty-impact-global-financial-crisis-latin-america-caribbean http://hdl.handle.net/10986/18727 |
Summary: | Any time there is an economic crisis;
there is the very real potential that its consequences for
human welfare will be severe. Thus when the developed world
plunged into such a crisis in 2008 and growth rates in Latin
America and the Caribbean (LAC) began to plummet, fears rose
that the region will suffer rising unemployment, poverty,
malnutrition, and infant mortality, among other things. This
study confirms and quantifies many of the sobering links
between crisis and poverty, but it also shows how powerful
good policy in stable times is in attenuating those links.
It thus underscores the need for sound growth policies, good
macro prudential care, fiscal balance, low debt, reasonably
flexible exchange rates, and the like to help prevent and
manage crises. It equally shows how effective social
protection responses built on adequate existing programs can
be. This study documents the effects of the 2008-09 global
financial crisis on poverty in 12 countries in the LAC
region, and it comes away with six big picture messages,
each with much nuance and many caveats that are explained
briefly in this overview. |
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