CNE – Centro Para Una Nueva Economía – Center for a New Economy
Non-profit, economic research and policy development organization
A casi cuatro años de haber participado de los trabajos del Informe CNE/Brookings sobre la economĂa de Puerto Rico, el Dr. Barry Bosworth, Senior Fellow del Instituto Brookings, encuentra que la situaciĂłn econĂłmica de Puerto Rico se ha deteriorado marcadamente. En parte, este deterioro se debe al impacto de la profunda crisis econĂłmica y financiera a nivel global.
On October 3, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln issued a proclamation inviting his fellow citizens to “… in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficient Father who dwelleth in the Heavens.”
Una de las preguntas que más a menudo me hacen es cuál deberĂa ser la estrategia para hacer crecer la economĂa de Puerto Rico. TĂpicamente lo que buscan es la ansiada bala plateada con la cual matar al vampire de la recesiĂłn.
On May 28th, 2008 then governor AnĂbal Acevedo Vilá signed Puerto Rico’s new tax incentives law, which we described as the time as another attempt in the long line of mostly futile efforts undertaken since 1976 to resuscitate Puerto Rico’s flawed economic development model based on tax breaks.Â
So said Aristotle, warning his students against making bold predictions based on scant evidence. It is in this light that we should interpret the most recent change in the Government Development Bank’s Economic Activity Index, which showed a slight increase in its absolute value from 134.27 in August to 135.32 in September, which is equivalent to a month over month increase of 0.78%.
The global economy is apparently beginning to recover from the most severe financial crisis since the Great Depression and the deepest recession since the end of World War II. In general terms this is good news, but hold the champagne, we are not out of the woods yet.
The White House reported over the weekend that 17,597 jobs have been “created or saved” in Puerto Rico thanks to the impact of federal stimulus spending in the island. According to this report, Puerto Rico has been awarded $1,936,135,565 in federal funds under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (“ARRA”), of which $200,030,374 have been “received”, and thus presumably spent.
The smoking ruins in CAtaño are a grim reminder of Puerto Rico’s extreme dependence on fossil fuels. Indeed, one of the biggest challenges we currently face lies in transforming our fossil fuel-based energy economy to a stable, sustainable energy economy.
