Call for Research Proposals – Connecting Latin America and the Caribbean: Infrastructure for Regional Integration

Improvements in cross-border infrastructure, both physical and digital, serve to deepen and strengthen regional integration and, thereby, bring about multiple and diverse economic benefits.

Specifically, enhancements in cross-border physical and digital infrastructure can significantly reduce the transportation and administrative processing costs of trade and investment flows. This tends to favor an expansion of intra-regional trade given the prevailing location of firms, as well as a re-optimization of the spatial configuration of economic activity. In turn, the consequent increase in market size and dynamism contributes to raising the region’s attractiveness as a destination for foreign direct investment (FDI) in general, and as a location for multinational firms in particular. This may specifically foster the establishment of cross-border productive linkages involving multinational and domestic firms. As a result, innovative activity, total factor productivity, and growth may increase, especially when interventions in physical and digital infrastructure are coordinated within and between countries.

Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) face significant challenges related to the availability and quality of physical and digital infrastructure (Brichetti et al., 2021), which condition their competitiveness in international markets and future development. Deficiencies in physical and digital assets that enable regional connectivity (the hardware of integration), and the lack of harmonization of regulatory frameworks and administrative procedures that facilitate cross border circulation of goods, services, and people (the software of integration), hinder the ability to harness the economic benefits associated with integration processes in the region.

In this context, the region has been making efforts to close connectivity gaps, attempting to coordinate and articulate the deployment of software and hardware in various regional integration initiatives. Among them: 1) the Central American Electrical Interconnection System (SIEPAC) under the Mesoamerica Integration and Development Project, which seeks to develop regional markets for electricity, natural gas, and renewable energies, among others; 2) the Andean Electrical Interconnection System (SINEA); 3) binational hydroelectric plants, such as Salto Grande (Argentina and Uruguay), Itaipú (Paraguay and Brazil), and Yacyretá (Argentina and Paraguay); 4) the Initiative for the Integration of South American Regional Infrastructure (IIRSA) which originated in 2000, with the aim of structuring the territorial planning of infrastructure projects through multinational integration and development axes; among other examples.

Beyond the actions taken in past years, LAC still has a long way to go to physically and digitally integrate the region’s economic space, promote regional value chains, and enhance LAC’s insertion in the global economy. The challenge is even greater in the face of climate change, which demands the deployment of resilient and sustainable infrastructure projects.

Funding Information

• The available budget will be US$8,000 for each of the six selected proposals.

What are they looking for?

• The objective of the call is to select research investigations that allow the generation of diagnoses and specific intervention proposals focused on the thematic areas detailed below (although not limited to them). The analyses can be conceptual, empirical, or may consist of case studies of relevant regional or extra-regional experiences of regulatory frameworks, policies, and bilateral or subregional initiatives. Below are some indicative areas where proposals could focus on.
  • Measurement: evolution and patterns of physical (air, land, maritime and river transportation, energy, water) and digital integration of countries in Latin America and the Caribbean compared to other regions of the world; the role of FDI.
  • Interactions and effects: theoretical and conceptual aspects and/or empirical evidence of interactions between physical and digital infrastructure, trade facilitation and coordination between them and trade, investment and regional integration in general; the channels through which these interactions operate; and their effects on productivity and growth.
  • Regulatory frameworks and policies: similarities and differences in national regulatory frameworks for physical and digital infrastructure and associated services relevant to regional integration; degree of progress and coherence of countries’ trade facilitation policies (e.g., risk management systems, authorized economic operator schemes, single windows for foreign trade, and international transit systems); and opportunities and challenges for coordinating or harmonizing such frameworks and policies.
  • Specific regional integration initiatives: cases of schemes and mechanisms for coordinating physical and digital infrastructure and trade facilitation between countries (e.g., construction or improvement of routes and border crossings with coordinated management between countries), governance of regional physical and digital integration, financing of regional physical and digital infrastructure in general, and the role of foreign direct investment, in particular.

Who can submit a proposal?

• The call is open to independent researchers and teams from universities, research centers, and think tanks from the 48 member countries of the IDB – 26 borrowers and 22 non-borrowers. When it comes to individuals or teams from non-borrowing member countries, they must submit their proposals in partnership with a native or research team from one of the 26 borrowing member countries.

For more information, visit INTAL.