Blog

The (in)justice of COFINA

Imagine it is the year 2035 and all international trade and travel has halted to a dead stop due to the sudden appearance of a highly contagious disease hitherto unknown to humanity.  The good news is that Chinese Pharmaceutical Company, which is majority-owned by the Chinese government, has developed a highly effective vaccine against this disease.  The bad news is that it will cost the government of Puerto Rico $2 billion to acquire sufficient doses to protect its population.

Measuring Social Progress

What should we consider as progress in the 21st Century?  How can we measure such progress?  These are two provocative questions that the global project on Measuring the Progress of Societies, directed by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), attempts to elucidate.

Viejas Ideas

Durante toda la crisis económica global, uno de los nombres que más se ha mencionado ha sido el del famoso economista británico, John Maynard Keynes, por sus posturas intervencionistas para mitigar ciclos recesionarios. Sin embargo, para mí la declaración más importante de Keynes fue la siguiente: “Lo realmente difícil no es tanto desarrollar nuevas ideas sino lograr escapar de las viejas”.

Convergencias

En Puerto Rico llevamos no sé ya cuantos años hablando de la necesidad de llegar a un consenso para lograr un desarrollo económico sostenido.  Culpamos nuestra inhabilidad de crecer la economía a la falta de ese escurridizo consenso.

The Principles for Tax Reform

Puerto Rico currently has a tax system that no one consciously would have built from the ground up. It is unduly burdensome to administer and enforce; it is inequitable, along both horizontal and vertical dimensions; it oftentimes encourages the inefficient allocation of resources and it inflicts enormous damage to our competitiveness.

The Outlook for 2010

In 2009, according to The Economist magazine, world output shrank by more than 1 percent, the first time since 1945 that it has declined on a year-over-year basis. At the same time, years of excessive lending and irrational asset pricing finally caught up with the world’s financial system.

Elías

Recientemente se publicó en un diario del país una preocupante nota donde se fustiga y se culpa a la comunidad judía en Puerto Rico por toda una serie de problemas. Leerla me causó sorpresa y consternación, pero más me sorprendió que en los días siguientes no vi ninguna respuesta en defensa o por lo menos condenando tales comentarios y tal actitud.

The Economy in 2009

This year was a tough and difficult one for the Puerto Rican economy. In part due to the Great Recession and the financial crises that have adversely affected economic activity around the world since 2007.