Books

The Economy of Puerto Rico

Restoring Growth
BOOK DETAILS

607 Pages
Brookings Institution Press, June 22, 2006
Paperback ISBN: 9780815715535
Ebook ISBN: 9780815715603

A non-incorporated territory of the United States, Puerto Rico operates under U.S. legal, monetary, security and tariff systems. Despite sharing in these and other key U.S. institutions, Puerto Rico has experienced economic stagnation and large scale unemployment since the 1970s. The island’s living standards are low by U.S. standards, with a per capita income only half that of Mississippi, the poorest state. While many studies have analyzed the fiscal implications of Puerto Rico’s political relationship with the United States, little research has focused broadly on the island’s economic experience or assessed its growth prospects. In this innovative new book, economists from U.S. and Puerto Rican institutions address a range of major policy issues affecting the island’s economic development. To frame the current situation, the contributors begin by assessing Puerto Rico’s past experience with various growth policies. They then analyze several reforms and new initiatives in labor, education, entrepreneurship, fiscal policy, migration, trade, and financing development, which they incorporate into a proposed strategy for jumpstarting Puerto Rican economic growth.

Contributors include Gary Burtless (Brookings Institution); Orlando Sotomayor, Luis Rivera-Batiz, Ramón Cao, Maria Enchautegui, José Joaquín Villamil, Eileen Segarra, Marinés Aponte, and Juan Lara (University of Puerto Rico); Richard Freeman and Robert Lawrence (Harvard University); Helen Ladd (Duke University); Francisco Rivera-Batiz (Columbia University); Steven Davis and Bruce Meyer (University of Chicago); James Alm (Georgia State University); Ingo Walter, Rita Maldonado-Bear, and William Baumol (New York University); Belinda Reyes (University of California, Merced); Alan Krueger (Princeton University); Carlos Santiago (University of Wisconsin); David Audretsch (Indiana University); Ronald Fisher (Michigan State University); Fuat Andic (UN Advisor); Arturo Estrella (NY Federal Reserve); James Hanson and Daniel Lederman (World Bank); James Dietz (University of California, Fullerton); and Katherine Terrell (University of Michigan).

Restoring Growth in Puerto Rico

Overview and Policy Options
BOOK DETAILS

136 Pages
Brookings Institution Press, May 17, 2006
Paperback ISBN: 9780815715504
Ebook ISBN: 9780815715597

As a territory of the United States, Puerto Rico enjoys the benefits of key U.S. legal, monetary, security, and tariff systems, and its residents are U.S. citizens. In the decades following World War II, Puerto Rico emerged as one of the world’s fastest-growing economies. From 1950 to 1970 per capita income nearly doubled as a percentage of the U.S. average, making the island the richest economy in Latin America. Since the mid-1970s, however, labor force attachment has declined, economic growth has slowed, and the island’s living standards have fallen further behind those on the mainland. Today more than half of all Puerto Rican children live below the U.S. poverty level. Why did Puerto Rico’s economic progress stall? And more important, what can be done to restore growth? A number of overlapping concerns—labor supply and demand, entrepreneurship, the fiscal situation, financial markets, and trade——are at the heart of its economic difficulties. This is a companion volume to Restoring Growth: The Economy of Puerto Rico (Brookings, 2006), in which economists from Puerto Rico and the United States examine the island’s economy and propose strategies for sustainable growth. This monograph summarizes the analyses published in that volume and presents a set of policy recommendations to increase employment, improve education, upgrade infrastructure, and fix government finances. Contributors include James Alm (Georgia State University), Barry P. Bosworth and Gary Burtless (Brookings Institution), Susan M. Collins (Brookings Institution and Georgetown University), Steven J. Davis (University of Chicago), María E. Enchautegui, Juan Lara, Luis A. Rivera- Batiz, and Orlando Sotomayor (University of Puerto Rico), Richard B. Freeman and Robert Z. Lawrence (Harvard University), Helen F. Ladd (Duke University), Rita Maldonado-Bear and Ingo Walter (New York University), Francisco L. Rivera-Batiz (Columbia University), and Miguel A. Soto-Class (Center for the New Economy).

Restablecer el crecimiento en Puerto Rico

Panorama y alternativas
BOOK DETAILS

148 pages
Publisher: Center for the New Economy (August 2, 2008)
Language: Spanish
ISBN-10: 0979942675
ISBN-13: 978-0979942679

Restablecer el crecimiento en Puerto Rico resume los análisis originales que aparecieron en las páginas de ‘The Economy of Puerto Rico: Restoring Growth,’ un texto voluminoso publicado por el Centro para la Nueva EconomĂ­a y el Brookings Institution que se ha convertido en un clásico de la literatura econĂłmica sobre Puerto Rico. Esta traducciĂłn al español del resumen que apareciĂł originalmente en inglĂ©s bajo el tĂ­tulo ‘Restoring Growth in Puerto Rico’ examina la economĂ­a de la isla desde varias perspectivas y provee soluciones para lograr un crecimiento sostenido. En sus páginas, diversos economistas de Puerto Rico y los Estados Unidos proponen recomendaciones de polĂ­tica pĂşblica para aumentar la tasa de participaciĂłn laboral, mejorar el ambiente empresarial, reparar el sistema educativo y enderezar las finanzas gubernamentales.