(15 April 2011) A study on economic growth in Cuba was awarded the first "Juan F. Noyola" International Prize for Research into Economic Development, created by the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) and the Institute of Economic Research of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM).
The winning study was entitled "Economic growth in Cuba: an analysis from total factor productivity", and was presented by a professor from Havana University, Yaima Doimeadiós Reyes. In her study, the author sought to establish which variables determined the growth trends of the Cuban economy between 1975 and 2004, using an econometric model that incorporates non-traditional variables into growth studies.
Second place was awarded to two economists from El Salvador, Roberto Góchez Sevilla and Víctor Antonio Tablas, for their research on "Real exchange rate and trade deficit in Guatemala". This study analyses the dynamics of the variables prioritized in the unorthodox theory of the absolute cost advantage, and its link to the trade deficit and real exchange rate appreciation in Guatemala during the period 1970-2007.
The first prize is 100,000 Mexican pesos or the equivalent in dollars (about US$ 8,500), and publication of the study by the Institute of Economic Research of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM). The second prize is 30,000 Mexican pesos (or around US$ 2,500).
The competition was created in April 2010 and attracted 24 specialized monographs from Bolivia, Brazil, Cuba, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico, United Kingdom and Switzerland. The winners will be invited to a special award ceremony that will be announced soon.
The jury was made up of Verónica Villarespe Reyes, Director of the Institute of Economic Research of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), Leonardo Lomelí Vanegas, Director of the Economics Faculty at UNAM, Juan Carlos Moreno-Brid, Deputy Director of the ECLAC office in Mexico, Juan Alberto Fuentes Knight, ECLAC Regional Advisor, Mauricio de Maria y Campos, Director of the Institute of Sustainable Development and Social Equity Research of the Ibero-American University, Carlos Bustamante Lemus, professor and researcher from the Institute of Economic Research and Óscar Ugarteche Galarza, professor and researcher from the Institute of Economic Research.
The competition is aimed at Latin American academics, professionals and intellectuals. The research studies must deal with topics relating to economic development, either theoretical or empirical aspects, and must contribute to the analysis and formulation of alternatives.
The prize is dedicated to the Mexican intellectual who developed the structuralist theory of inflation and who died in an airplane accident in 1962 at the age of 40. Juan Francisco Noyola studied at what was then the UNAM School of Economics, and was part of the group of Latin American economists brought together by Raúl Prebisch in 1950 within ECLAC, who also included the Brazilian Celso Furtado, the Chileans Aníbal Pinto and Osvaldo Sunkel and the Mexican Víctor Urquidi.
For further information, contact the ECLAC regional headquarters in Mexico.
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