With historically weak states, low tax revenues, and high-spending populist impulses, Latin America faces a fiscal trap that threatens to perpetuate chronic deficits and new crises.
The power of corporate lobbying and the extreme concentration of wealth are deepening inequality and weakening social and democratic foundations, pushing economies toward a growing risk of social fracture.
While in developed countries productivity drives high-quality employment, in Latin America technological progress is increasing efficiency at the cost of greater informality and less formal employment.
Violence operates as a “hidden tax” that costs Latin America 3.5% of its GDP and chokes investment, productivity, and development, making security the region’s major outstanding economic policy.
