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About LACEA
» A Brief History of LACEA
» LACEA Bylaws
» LACEA Objectives
» LACEA Sponsors
The Latin American and Caribbean Economic Association (LACEA) or Asociación
de Economía de América Latina y el Caribe (ADEALC) was founded in
July of 1992 in order to encourage greater professional interaction
and foster increased dialogue among researchers and practitioners
who focus their work on the economies of Latin America and the Caribbean.
The idea of creating such an association of economists was first put
into action during the April 1991 Washington, D.C. meetings of the
Latin American Studies Association by Michael Conroy, then a professor
of economics at the University of Texas at Austin. At a meeting attended
by close to forty participants, a seven-member Organizing Committee,
led by Nora Lustig, was appointed. LACEA has since grown to an
organization with more than 500 active members.
The Organizing Committee quickly obtained enthusiastic support for
the idea of creating an association from a dozen leading scholars
in the field. This early support was critical to the success of the
efforts to create LACEA. Soon after, the Organizing Committee identified
the initial Executive Committee, drafted the association’s bylaws,
and applied for membership of the Allied Social Science Association
(ASSA), officially launching LACEA.Over one hundred prominent economists
from throughout the region were invited and accepted the invitation
to be charter members of LACEA. The first Executive Committee was
selected and Albert Fishlow, then professor at the University of California,
Berkeley was invited to become the first President of LACEA. Nora
Lustig, then at the Brookings Institution, was selected as Vice-President,
and Darryl McLeod, professor at Fordham University, was invited to
become the Treasurer of the association. The other members of the
Executive Committee were: Edmar Bacha, Carlos Bazdresch, Guillermo
Calvo, Michael Conroy, Vittorio Corbo, Carmen Diana Deere, Sebastian
Edwards, Raul Feliz, Daniel Heymann, Ricardo Hausmann, Patricio Meller,
and John Welch. On July 1, 1994 the charter members officially approved
LACEA's bylaws and its first Executive Committee.
Under Albert Fishlow’s presidency (1993-1997) LACEA became a member
of the Allied Social Science Association (in January, 1993) and soon
began to host sessions at the annual meetings of the American Economics
Association, the Latin American Studies Association and the Econometric
Society/Latin American Meetings.
In 1996, LACEA began to host annual international meetings of its
own. The first meeting was hosted by ITAM, in Mexico City, and featured
157 papers and over 200 participants. The 1997 meeting was held in
Bogota, Colombia and was co-organized by FEDESARROLLO and Universidad
de los Andes. At this meeting, close to 250 participants were there
to see the presentation of 208 papers. The 1998 annual meeting was
held at the Universidad Torcuato Di Tella in Buenos Aires, Argentina
in 1998 and featured 238 papers. In 1999 the meeting occurred in Santiago,
Chile, and was organized by the Instituto de Economía de la Pontificia
Universidad Católica de Chile and the Centro de Economía Aplicada de
la Universidad de Chile. At this meeting, 279 papers were presented.
The most recent meeting was held in 2003 in Puebla, Mexico, and was
hosted by Universidad de las Americas, Puebla.
Under Nora Lustig’s presidency (1998-1999), LACEA expanded its activities
in several directions. In conjunction with the Inter-American Development
Bank and the World Bank, it created the Network on Inequality and
Poverty in 1998. It also started the Network on Political Economy
and a series of seminars on International Economics and Finance, a
joint initiative with the Center for International Economics at the
University of Maryland. All these activities are carried out in conjunction
with academic centers in Latin America and the Caribbean. In 1999,
at the Fourth Annual Meetings in Santiago, LACEA announced the launching
of a new academic journal, Economia. Professor Andres Velasco is the
current editor of the journal, which was modeled on the Brookings
Papers on Economic Activity and Economic Policy. The first issue was
released in 2000. Another significant event in 1999 was the awarding
of a major grant to LACEA from the Development Grant Facility of the
World Bank. This grant is being used to support LACEA’s Annual Meetings,
LACEA sponsored research Networks, and LACEA’s new journal.
Under
Sebastian Edwards's presidency (2002-03), LACEA added the
Inter-American Seminar on Economics to its list of sponsored
activities. In addition, in 2002, LACEA held its annual
meeting in Madrid, Spain, attracting researchers and scholars from
Europe and broadening the LACEA network.
Mariano Tommasi, Professor and Chairman of the Department of Economics
at Universidad de San Andres and Director of the Center of Studies for
Institutional Development, in Argentina, is the current President.
Legal Status of the Latin American and Caribbean Economic Association:
On December 3,1996 LACEA was incorporated under section 402 of the
New York Not-for-profit Corporation Law as Type A Education Not-for-Profit
corporation in the State of New York. On August 2, 1999 was recognized
by the U.S. Internal Revenue services as a tax exempt nonprofit corporation
under Section 501(a) of the Internal Revenue Code as an organization
described in section 501(c)(3).
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