This paper presents a new set of indicators concerning the status of economic reform in the candidate countries for the enlargement of the European Union which is scheduled for 2004. After an overview of indicators of institutional development, macroeconomic policy and trade policy, a composite index is derived. It turns out that the ranking of the candidate countries according to the composite index diverges from the ranking provided in the progress reports of the European Commission.

This paper reviews recent economic reforms carried out in Latin America and relates them to the long-run economic trends in the region. After a brief overview of growth and income distribution patterns of Latin American countries in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the paper addresses some of the reasons for the region’s economic decline. Milestones such as the debt crisis of 1982, the failure of heterodox stabilisation programmes in the 1980s and the consequences of liberalisation in the 1990s are discussed at length, as also are the lessons drawn from the financial crises of the 1990s for the current process of economic transformation.