Includes bibliographical references and index.

Introduction : can Latin America compete? / John Price and Jerry Haar -- The macroeconomic environment of competitiveness / Claudio M. Loser -- Coveting human capital : is Latin American education competitive? / Jeffrey M. Puryear and Tamara Ortega Goodspeed -- Competitive capital markets : Brazil's capital markets finally maturing / John H. Welch -- Consumer and small business credit : building blocks of the middle class / Jan Smith, Tricia Juhn, and Christopher Humphrey -- Closing the technology gap / Peter T. Knight and Rosane A. Marques -- Fostering innovation : technological innovation in urban clusters / Scott Tiffin and Isabel Bortagaray -- Not all infrastructure is created equally : learning from the best practices and stunning failures of Latin American water infrastructure / Lee M. Tablewski -- Logistics : the software that drives an economy / John Price -- Legal reform : some emerging paradoxes of Latin America's legal and judicial reform movement / Linn Hammergren -- Property, the rule of law, and development in the Americas / Peter F. Schaefer and P. Clayton Schaefer -- Tax reform : tax policy, reform, and competitiveness in Latin America / Mauricio Carrizosa -- Labor reform : undercompetitive economies and unprotected workforce / Christopher Sabatini -- Regulatory reform : increasing competitiveness through regulatory and investment climate improvements in Latin America; the case of Mexico / Luis Guasch and Benjamin Herzberg -- Public safety : the cost of living dangerously / John Price -- Conclusion : lessons learned and looking forward / Jerry Haar and John Price.