Latin American Capital Markets

464 CATHERINE CHANDLER-CRICHLOWfew regions have experienced the rapid economic transformation that has occurredin Latin America and the Caribbean. She links this to a surge in economic growth thathas increased not only the wages and incomes of nationals but also an awareness ofthe need to provide more equitable educational systems to increase the skill baseof potential workers in the region.What is human capital development? Contemporary literature describes anumber of elements of human capital; however; no one document provides a comprehensivepicture of this process (Becker 1993; Hunter 2000; OECD 1998; Outreville1999; UNDP 2002).This chapter uses the following definition:The process of creating a learning predisposition in workers and professionalsin a sector; which would perpetuate a desire for continuousimprovement of the skills, knowledge, and competencies theyneed to be marketable in the workplace.Implicit in this definition is the notion of a combination of individual and social responsibilityin human capital development The chapter is based on the idea that thereis a strong interaction between what is available in a system for individuals to use fordevelopment purposes and the individuals' commitment to a development path. Effectivehuman capital development strategies should engender the dynamic interplayof a push strategy by the broader society and a pull strategy by the individual. Thecommitment of limited financial resources to the establishment of products and servicesfor upgrading workers and professionals should respond to individuals' zest forcontinuous self-improvement.The balance between general social growth and specific individual developmentwould apply to any sector within a given system—financial services, health care,or agriculture. For countries where there are established approaches to human capitaldevelopment, this balance might be readily achieved. However; it might be difficultfor countries where models of and predisposition to developing human capital do notexist. Such countries need a catalyst for change, a compelling vision of sector developmentand its role in the broader economic development of the country. In suchenvironments, there would be a greater onus placed on the political level to defineand establish a system of good business practices. Governments therefore could playa facilitating role in harmonizing human capital and sector growth in the early phasesof a sector's development.This could serve to create a strong base from which sectorsevolve in a given country This government intervention in the provision of a publicgood, as it were, could be done on a cooperative basis with appropriate parts ofthe private sectorCopyright © by the Inter-American Development Bank. All rights reserved.For more information visit our website: www.iadb.org/pub