Revista de Economía del Caribe

Editorial #35

Revista de Economía del Caribe — 2025-07-01

Tax Policy and Informality in the Brazilian Economy

Thiago Geovane Pereira Gomes — 2025-07-02

The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the extent of informality in the Brazilian economy.
Factors such as unemployment, employment without formal contracts, and a high tax burden are widely documented in the literature as key determinants of this phenomenon.
However, the specific impacts of tax changes on informality remain underexplored. This study aims to analyze the effects of fiscal experiments on informality in Brazil using a dynamic general equilibrium model. The results show that increases in tax rates stimulate informality across various dimensions – consumption, production, and labor – leading to
negative consequences for tax revenue and exacerbating levels of tax evasion.

Ceará’s lobster exports: an approach by autoregressive vectors – VAR

Luis Abel da Silva Filho — 2025-07-02

Animal protein consumption has been growing worldwide with the advancement of globalization in trade, and it is sensitive to exchange rate changes and domestic product prices. Brazil stands out as one of the world's largest exporters of protein commodities, and Ceará is one of Brazil's largest fish exporters. Therefore, this study aims to analyze how exchange rate changes and changes in lobster prices affect the volume of lobster exported by the State of Ceará (the largest lobster exporter in the country). The selected period covers 2002 to 2022, and the analysis will be conducted using the Vector Autoregressive (VAR) approach. The results show that there is no long-term relationship between the variables and that the dynamics of lobster exports from Ceará can be explained much more by factors inherent and subjective to the supply and demand for the product rather than by macroeconomic variables commonly used in studies of this nature.

Strategies for the development of the State of Acre in Brazil: a spatial approach

Denis Fernandes Alves — 2025-07-02

The study aims to analyze the dynamics of the productive structure and the determinants of intermunicipal income inequalities in the state of Acre, Brazil. Regional economic indicators and spatial econometrics techniques were used. The results show the dynamics of the commerce and services sectors, which strengthened the economy in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as the agricultural sector, which experienced a relative decrease in participation, followed by construction and industry. In addition to reinforcing public and welfare policies, the study concludes that there were spatial effects of health, education, infrastructure, and other variables on the per capita income differentials among municipalities.

Latin America and the Caribbean: Exploring consumption from the permanent income hypothesis

Luis Domingo Laino Guanes — 2025-07-02

The object of this study is to verify the hypothesis of permanent income through a consumption function of Latin American and Caribbean countries. An equation that associates household consumption with current income and long-term income for data from 14 Latin American and Caribbean countries in the 20 years of the period 2004-2023 is proposed. Using the panel data technique, results that verify a strong relationship between consumption and current income exclusively are obtained, which is framed within the Keynesian theory and does not allow verification of compliance with the permanent income hypothesis.

Business Expectations and Gender Differences: The Case of SMEs in Panama

Carlos Liard Muriente — 2025-07-02

Panama, located at the crossroads of the Americas, has experienced robust economic growth and political stability in recent years, making it an attractive destination for foreign investment. Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are the backbone of any economy. They contribute significantly to job creation, income generation, and economic growth. In Panama, SMEs play a similar role. Using data from the World Bank, we implement a Tobit Regression Model to analyze the relationship between the business environment and business expectations among SMEs in Panama, and to test the hypothesis that women leaders are more likely to have lower business expectations. We find that women-led firms are more likely to have negative expectations, relative to their counterparts.

Socioeconomic conditions and insurance for farmers in Eastern Antioquia

Luz Dolly Lopera Garcia — 2025-07-02

Socioeconomic, labor, and social security aspects are described and analyzed in 21 legally constituted associations of small agricultural producers in eastern Antioquia. This is a descriptive, cross-sectional study, with surveys administered to 432 members and/or employees and semi-structured interviews with legal representatives. Problems of unemployment and social insecurity were observed. It was evident that 70% had low levels of education; health coverage was 94.7% for men and 96.7% for women, however, with access problems; 6.6% of men and 6.3% of women had occupational risk coverage; 8.2% of men and 7.9% of women were affiliated with pensions.

Consumption, emigration and remittances: a causal relationship? The Colombian case in the 2005-2022 period.

Fernando Torres Medina — 2025-07-02

In this paper, using a VECM Error Correction Model, the relationship between emigration, remittances, real exchange rate and household final consumption for the period 2005-2022 is studied. The analysis is supported by the Keynesian consumption function, which establishes the dependence of consumption on income. Other variables such as the real exchange rate index, Colombian emigration, which according to the perception establishes a Granger causality relationship with remittances, are included. Now, as remittances have increased, they have become part of the permanent income of recipient families, which establishes a relationship between consumption and remittances, so it would be expected that emigration affects consumption. The results found indicate that the elasticity of consumption with respect to remittances is very low, and that it is much higher with respect to percentage changes in the emigration of Colombians. Similarly, it has been found that there is a Granger causal relationship between emigration and final household consumption, and between emigration and remittances.

Social Mobility in Peru: Impact of Education and the Socioeconomic Environment of the Head of Household (2014-2023)

Diana Milagros Reyna-Motta — 2025-07-02

Historically, parental education has been key to the social and economic mobility of their children. This article examines its impact and various socioeconomic variables (sex, age, mother tongue, disability, place of residence and region) on the educational opportunities and social mobility of heads of household in Peru (2014-2023).

Using a Generalized Ordinal Logit Model and the National Household Survey, it is confirmed that parental education is fundamental in the educational level of the head of household, supported by previous studies in Latin America. These findings highlight the need to invest in education to reduce inequalities and build more equitable societies where all people have the same opportunities.

Public investment in education and its effect on human development in Ecuador.

Ericka Alexandra Vinces Arrieta — 2025-07-02

La inversión pública en educación y su impacto en el desarrollo humano en Ecuador durante el periodo 2000-2022 constituye un factor determinante para el progreso socioeconómico del país. La literatura académica destaca la relación entre la inversión educativa y el desarrollo social en América Latina. Se aplicó una metodología cuantitativa basada en series de tiempo y un modelo de regresión lineal múltiple utilizando datos de fuentes oficiales. Los resultados muestran una asociación positiva significativa entre el aumento del gasto educativo y la mejora en indicadores como las tasas de escolarización y la reducción de las brechas socioeconómicas. Se concluye que la implementación de estrategias de educación integral es fundamental para potenciar el desarrollo humano en Ecuador.