I see that I unwittingly assumed things about South
American countries, which, whilst valid for Europe and
North America do not extend to your situation.
The lack of sources is obviously a serious problem, but
I would again emphasise that the amount of time required
is not excessive. It depends in part on one's personal and
family situation, but it is possible to empirical work
in ones spare time. Most of the work in economics that
I do is in my spare time, as I have never had a paid job
in economics.
----------
> From: aramos@aramos.bo
> To: Multiple recipients of list <ope-l@anthrax.ecst.csuchico.edu>
> Subject: [OPE-L:4205] Re: profit rate determination
> Date: 13 February 1997 17:42
>
> > Thanks for your advise Paul, but it seems to me that really you are
> not aware how different are these countries from "northern
> hemisphere". In this country (Bolivia) there are not Public Library.
> I find difficult to conceive a 50 years of continuous statistical
> publications! In my own country (Costa Rica), I think, only once was
> calculated an input-output table in the 70s. At least 4 years ago,
> there were only a couple of dubious "updatings" of the i/o table. I
> did a lot of empirical research when I was in my country but insofar
> as you start to deal with the numbers you rapidly discover that they
> are very far from represent something "real" (I am not referring to
> statistical "errors" but to authentic "cooking of numbers"). I have
> also lived in Buenos Aires, Argentina for 4 years. Buenos Aires is a
> rich city for Latinamerican standard. When I was there, the Library
> of the Central Bank has not a photocopy machine. Most of the
> international journals have been discontinued. I heard than in some
> Latinamerican cities like Mexico DF and Sao Paulo or Brasilia the
> thing is better than this, but really I do not know.
>