Podcast | Brookings Cafeteria Podcast

Latin America: Grand Vision of a Shared Future

October 31, 2014, Ernesto Talvi and Fred Dews

“Latin America actually lacks an identity because it has them all,” says Ernesto Talvi—a Brookings nonresident senior fellow—as he reflects on how Peruvian poet Mario Vargas Llosa described Latin America. In this podcast, Talvi, director of the Brookings Global-CERES Economic and Social Policy in Latin America Initiative, explains why there are actually three Latin Americas based on macroeconomic factors; why nations such as Chile, Peru, Mexico and Colombia have very strong fundamentals (and why Argentina and Venezuela are troubling); why economic growth has slowed in the region since 2011; and why inequalities throughout the region are inconsistent with a stable social order. Also, listen to find out why Talvi chose the University of Chicago and its frigid winters for graduate study in economics, a world away from his temperate native country, Uruguay.