ABSTRACT
There is no established convention for the designation of “developed” and “developing” countries in the United Nations system. However, some of its agencies, as well as other international organizations, have created categories that can be used as proxies. For Latin America, the picture is grim: only Argentina and Chile are ranked “very high” in the UNDP Human Development Index (2016), only Chile and Uruguay are considered as “high-income economies” by the World Bank (2017), and no Latin American country is deemed to be an “advanced economy” by the International Monetary Fund (2017). To the dismay of nationalists, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico is included in all three top groups. Apparently, economic integration with the US has contributed more to development than national independence and regional integration – even though Puerto Rico is less developed than the 50 US states. Low levels of development (as conventionally understood) in Latin America are due to a combination of causes, some of which are rooted at the national level while others are related to the failure of regional organizations.
