Daniel Sotelsek
Visiting Scholar Fall 2008 - Spring 2009
Professor, IELAT (Institute of Latin American Studies)- University of Alcala

Area of Expertise: Finance and Economics, Development Economics, and Environmental Economics

Country of Expertise: Argentina, Spain

Project title: The environmental issue and poverty in Latin America : Relation with productive inefficiency.

Current Research Project:
Latin American is experiencing an exceptional situation in terms of economic behaviour in the last decades. In fact, it is necessary to go back four decades to find a similar five year period of GDP per capita growth higher than 3%. This behaviour has been favourably influenced by an international context of high growth. Beyond the turbulence of the last few months, which will affect growth rate during 2008 and 2009, it is reasonable to assume that this international context will continue to be, in relative terms, favourable in the next few years. However, it is foreseeable that this situation changes in the long term due to:

•  In the long term the demand of natural resources will not grow at the rate of the years.

•  The price and forms of energy will undergo an important transformation process.

•  The constraints on immigration and the increasing presence of second and third generation of immigrants will reduce the flow of remittances.

Therefore, it is necessary to build the bases of a sustainable knowledge in the middle term which is less dependant on the mention factors. Thus, it is essential that the countries of the region take advantage the window of opportunities to create the conditions that will allow a sustainable and equitable growth in the middle term. This imposes a reflection on how the region positions before structural global change and which are the viable paths of development in this scenario. In this line of thinking there are three factors (among others) that, in my opinion, require study: the environmental issue and its impact in the productive sector, poverty and marginalization of a significant sector of the population and the evolution of the productive efficiency of the region.
In any case and apart from the last decades, financial resources, democratic stability and globalization generated possibilities exist today to try to design a strategy that counts with all the elements mentioned above.

Academic Background:
PhD. in Economics (Cum Laude), University of Alcala , 1991.

Selected Publications:
Sotelsek, D. y Pavón L. (2008). Una revisión sobre la relación entre crisis cambiarias y bancarias: los problemas de información y expectativas. [A review of the relationships between currency and banking crises: Information problems and expectations]. Revista de la CEPAL., 95: 67-81. Santiago de Chile

Sotelsek, D. y Ahamdanech, I. (2008). Reflexiones sobre el crecimiento, el medio ambiente y la pobreza. [Reflections about growth, environment and poverty]. Revista Economía Industrial, 367: 153-166. Madrid

Sotelsek, D. y Azqueta, D. (2007). Valuing nature: From environmental impacts to natural capital Ecological Economics, 63: 22-30.

Sotelsek , D. (2007). Exclusión Social y Pobreza en América Latina [Social exclusion and poverty in Latin America]. Revista Española del Tercer Sector, 5: 111-148. January-April. Madrid

Sotelsek, D y Mancha, T. (2001) (coordinator). Convergencia económica e integración: La experiencia en Europa y América Latina [Economic convergence and integration. The experience of Europe and Latin America]. Ed. Pirámide. Madrid (coautor Tomás Mancha)