Studia i Prace WNEiZ US

The papers aims to assess the impact of price changes in international trade in the second decade of the 21st century on Latin American economies. Emphasis is placed on the analysis of export dynamics and GDP growth rates in two sub-regions comprising Latin America (i.e. Central America and South America) and selected individual countries, which are diverse in terms of their export structures. The paper derives from the authors’ previous studies into determinants of export in developing countries, particularly the effects of price changes. Latin American economies (like those in Africa) are much more dependent on exporting primary commodities than developed countries, and as a result they are more affected by any changes in the prices of these commodities. In the first decade of the 21st century a rise in the prices of these commodities was immediately reflected in the higher export dynamics and GDP growth rate. Since 2011 the situation has reversed. The scale of the fall in the region’s exports is reflected in its biggest decline in the last eighty years, i.e. since the Great Depression of the 1930s.