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In the universe of literature on franchises, several studies have examined the impact of franchising on economic growth, tending to focus on growth rather than development, although the empirical research has already concluded that franchising does have an influence on economic growth. Likewise, some articles have underscored the importance and influence of franchising on development, but have failed to provide empirical proof of its true sway. With that in mind, this paper provides empirical evidence demonstrating the relationship between franchising and development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Against the backdrop of trade liberalization, economies in Latin America have endeavored to capitalize on their comparative advantages and join global production processes; despite the fact that industrial exports have grown, however, they have had only a modest impact in terms of boosting the product in Latin American economies. The objective of this paper is to determine the influence of industrial exports on the product in six Latin American countries, using the input-output model and the network theory. The hypothesis sets out to prove that out of an economy's total transactions, the spillover effects from the industrial sector exports in each country are more diversified the more the country trades with the United States, even if these effects are weak, due to the low structural articulation in each of them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper shows the importance of technologies of scientific origin in the evolution of Latin American agrarian capitalism during the past three decades. From the perspective of dialectic materialism as a method and epistemological positioning the following is concluded: the package of the green revolution left the process of agrarian salary distribution unresolved. On the contrary, new technologies aiming at productivity in the global market do allow a) to partially detach agriculture from the constraint of its natural rhythms, b) to substantially increase production capability in work and in the soil, c) to invigorate surpluses under the structure of agribusinesses, d) to free workers from rural economy and the food industry itself, and e) to guarantee salary relations as the predominant way of generating value. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The basic premise of this paper is that the problem in the agency-social structure or subject-social structure relationship is crucial for understanding the present stage of take-off in the new phase of development or capitalism of knowledge following the recent global crisis of 2007-2009. This expresses the contradiction between neoliberalism, as a political-ideological projection, and a new technological-productive base, as well as the question of differentiation between developed "successful" countries and those that are "backward". Institutionalism and Gramsci's Marxism have offered solutions to the agency-structure dichotomy through very different theoretical approaches, the first seeking to explain the issue of differentiation between countries. Aspects of an alternative explanation are provided here through the Gramscian solution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Society and culture at the planetary level suffered major transformations during the twentieth century, particularly in the second half, largely because of the impressive degree of scientific and technological development. Forms of economic production also experienced profound changes, so much so that the greatest wealth, from an economic standpoint, now is generated by so-called knowledge-based production systems. The concept of a knowledge society has been forged to refer to these phenomena. Nevertheless, it is a fact that science and technology have brought about major changes, thereby making it urgent to develop strategies to strengthen the culture of science and technology throughout Latin America. The aforementioned concepts are discussed in this paper, along with possible strategies for bolstering the culture of science and technology. The authors also contend that a suitable model for a knowledge society in the Latin American countries should consider their broad and rich cultural diversity, which poses additional challenges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper examines the relationship between the performance of Latin American stock markets with their real economies, applying seven econometric models for the cases of Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Mexico. The relationship between stock market yields in these countries and their respective GDPS is examined and compared, applying to the series for each country unit root tests, cointegration analysis, error correction model analysis, Granger causality modeling, self-regression vector analysis, stimulus and response functions, and variance decomposition analysis. The series comprise the following stock markets: Argentina's MERVAL, Brazil's BOVESPA, Chile's IGPA, and Mexico's IPC, as compiled by Economática. The GDP series were obtained from the Cepalstat data base. The series are monthly and are for the period 1993-2005. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses the Luxembourg Income Study (LIS) to analyze the dimension of the middle class in various Latin American countries. One of its major findings is that during the first decade of this century, the size of the middle class in Latin America did not appear to depend on demographic factors. A second finding is that, in contrast with the majority of developed countries, government income and expenditure policies had little influence on increasing the size of the middle class in the Latin American countries in the sample. Finally, as in the developed world, labor market factors have little influence on the size of the middle class in Latin America, the main exceptions being Brazil and Mexico, where employment seems to increase the size of the middle class. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents an analysis of the situation of the agriculture sector in Latin America. It presents the causes of the crisis in this sector, and the actions taken by the developed countries to promote its development. It also presents an analysis of the agriculture sector's contribution to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), and the links it can generate. A whole chapter presents an analysis of the Costa Rican agriculture sector based on current data from various sources: Estado de la Nación, Promotora de Comercio Exterior, Banco Central de Costa Rica, Ministerio de Comercio Exterior, and others. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]