CNE – Centro Para Una Nueva Economía – Center for a New Economy
Non-profit, economic research and policy development organization
In 2008, the Center for the New Economy, in fulfillment of its mission to provide rigorous, independent analysis to policymakers, the press, and the public at large, established a fiscal analysis program to monitor and keep track of important fiscal trends affecting the Puerto Rican economy. As part of that program, we developed a series of budget performance indicators, which we have updated with data from the budget for fiscal year 2009-10.
Some economists in the U.S. have started to talk about the Great Recession of 2009 when analyzing the current economic downturn. In the U.S. alone, home equity lost, between 2006 and 2008, $4.2 trillion; the value of retirement assets has declined by $2.3 trillion; while other investments and savings show losses of an additional $2.5 trillion.
La crisis fiscal y econ贸mica por la cual atravesamos en Puerto Rico y a nivel global, ha resaltado muchas de las diferencias de percepci贸n e interpretaci贸n de los eventos entre trabajadores y patronos. Ambos lados reaccionan con preocupaci贸n. Pero sus propuestas en la mayor铆a de los casos son muy diferentes.
Professors Steven Davis and Luis Rivera Batiz, in an analysis conducted for their contribution to the book The Economy of Puerto Rico: Restoring Growth, published in 2006 by the Center for the New Economy and the Brookings Institution, found that a “truly striking feature of Puerto Rico’s economy is the underdeveloped state of its private sector.” According to their analysis, private sector employment rates in Puerto Rico are less than half the U.S. rates in recent decades.
Between 1870 and 1914 the world lived the high point of the first era of economic globalization. The globe was effectively connected through railways, steamships, and telegraph lines.
Puerto Rico’s credit rating has been in the news recently. When the government of Puerto Rico or one of its agencies issues bonds, credit rating agencies, such as Moody’s Investors Service and Standard & Poor’s Rating Services, analyze various quantitative and qualitative factors that may affect the borrower’s ability and willingness to repay, including, but not limited to, the financial condition of the borrower, the prevailing economic conditions in the island, and the political environment at the time of going to the market.
About a month ago the Puerto Rico Treasury Department released the preliminary revenue figures for fiscal year 2008. General fund net revenues totaled $8.252 billion, which is $610 million, or 6.88 percent, less than the $8.862 billion collected during the previous fiscal year.
驴Qu茅 nos dice el indicador? Una manera de examinar la sustentabilidad del Gobierno es analizando la proporci贸n entre la deuda p煤blica y el producto nacional bruto (PNB) a precios corrientes.
