Impactos de los cambios económicos recientes a nivel regional e internacional sobre el crecimiento económico uruguayo

The present work studies and compares the impact of international and regional shocks on Uruguayan economic growth. International shocks are characterized by a slowdown in China's GDP growth rate of 0.6% and an increase in the US short-term interest rate of 0.62bp. Meanwhile, regional shocks from Argentina and Brazil are represented by the 1.34% and 3% fall in GDP growth in both countries, respectively. The shocks are simulated using the GVAR methodology, a multi-country global model with quarterly data between 1979Q4 and 2015Q4. The results show that the simulated contractions in the growth rate of the neighbour countries are significant and negative on the Uruguayan growth rate, and that the shock of Brazil, which is simulated as greater than the one from Argentina, is the one that would cause more pronounced recessive effects on the Uruguayan variable. While the deceleration in China's growth rate and the simulated US interest rate increase would not cause significant and recessive effects on Uruguay's GDP, nor would it imply significant depreciation effects. It is concluded that in the simulated context, the analysed period and under the methodology used, the economic growth of Uruguay is presumably more vulnerable to the shocks coming from the region than to the international ones.