Socio-economic policies in Latin America: challenges and opportunities.

The Economics of Innovation, Economic Development and States & Markets working groups of the Young Scholars Initiative of the Institute for New Economic Thinking (YSI/INET) are glad to announce a workshop on Socio-economic policies in Latin America to be held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on the 19th of July 2023 at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ).

Programme available here

Background
Over the past decades, Latin America has faced challenges finding a suitable economic and social development strategy. The structural dependency of Latin-American economies on the Global North, its financial subordination in the international financial and monetary system, its peripheral position in global values chains, and political turbulences represent challenges to achieving development. However, the recent economic and environmental crisis, as well as the growing US-China hegemonic competition, has meant new challenges and potential opportunities to the structural conditions faced by Latin America.
Historically, the region has been characterised by its inclination to be used as a laboratory for new economic and political regimes, such as during the Chilean and Argentinian neoliberal and authoritarian regimes in the 1970s or the shock therapy in Bolivia in the 1980s. However, Latin America has also come up with rather indigenous answers to the prevailing status quo in the rest of the world. In the 2000s, the pink tide reverted some of the previous policies implemented in the 1990’s, such as through the re-nationalisation of key industries and public utilities, but also implemented new policies to reduce poverty and income inequality, such as the Bolsa Família in Brazil.
At present, the cyclical political movements within the region have put into power a new wave of governments that share some of the political and economic goals of the earlier pink tide tendency, although with more stringent economic, political and environmental constraints.

Motivation
The goal is to organise a workshop to discuss socio-economic policy challenges and opportunities from a Latin American perspective in order to propose alternative paradigms. We focus on research on various topics from heterodox economics approaches including, but not limited to, Structuralist, Marxist, Post-Keynesian, Institutionalist, Evolutionary and Feminist theories. Moreover, we encourage the use of both quantitative and qualitative research methods.
This early career workshop is part of the pre-conference activities for the Society for the Advancement of Socio-Economics (SASE) conference, which will be held at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ). The YSI early career workshop will also be held at the UFRJ on the 19th of July 2023, and the SASE conference will be held at the same location 20-22 July 2023. The workshop will consist of sessions with presentations by young scholars and feedback from senior scholars, who will act as mentors, and one panel with Latin-American policymakers.

Application process and funding
● Submit an extended abstract of 800-1,000 words
● Deadline for abstract: 8th of February 2023
● Deadline for full papers: 19th of June 2023.
● Abstracts and full papers should be sent in English but we will exceptionally accept Spanish and Portuguese.
● To submit your application, please, fill out the form.

A selected number of young scholars will receive accommodation and a partial travel stipend from YSI/INET based on their application and travel requirements. There is no fee to attend the YSI pre-conference. Interested students should have a valid profile at Young Scholars Directory and state in their application their motivation for funding, country of origin and academic status. Our target audience consists of young scholars (Graduate students, PhD candidates, Postdocs) and early career researchers from Latin American countries working on topics related to the Structuralist, Marxist, Post-Keynesian, Institutionalist, Evolutionary and Feminist theories.

We encourage registration and attendance to SASE’s main conference, 20-22 July 2023 at the UFRJ (information on submissions and registration can be found at www.sase.org). Applicants who would like to attend the SASE conference will have to follow SASE’s application process – acceptance to the YSI workshop does not mean acceptance to the SASE conference, and vice versa. Having a presentation accepted for the main SASE conference will not be a prerequisite for participation at YSI’s pre-conference event. Unfortunately YSI cannot cover fees of SASE’s conference.

Questions concerning this call may be sent to the organizers to the email [email protected].