La historia cuantitativa de la economía venezolana tiene antecedentes de importante significación. En particular, desde 1920 hasta el presente se dispone de cálculos y estimaciones del nivel agregado de la actividad económica. Más hacia atrás, sin embargo, la investigación histórica, ricamente documentada como sin duda lo es y por tanto de gran valor científico, apenas se ha ocupado en esa suerte de indagaciones macroeconómicas, al menos para intentar brindar una visión cuantitativa global del desempeño económico agregado.

Since 1976 profound changes have occurred in Brazilian national society, changes that have implications for the tribal populations in Brazil as well as for those conducting anthropological and linguistic research among these populations. Many of these changes can be linked to the government policy of abertura (opening). This policy was begun implicitly under the regime of Ernesto Geisel (1974-79) and has been continued more explicitly by the current President, João Baptista de Oliveira Figueiredo, who is scheduled to remain in office until 1985. Perhaps equally as important at the infrastructural level have been the global economic changes that were largely linked to earlier increases in oil prices. These steep increases have severely shaken the Brazilian economy, causing annual inflation rates in 1980, 1981, and 1982 of approximately 100 percent.

The beginning of the so-called Nova República was inauspicious for both Brazil and Brazilian cinema. The events surrounding the illness and death of President-elect Tancredo Neves and the subsequent inauguration of former government-party leader José Sarney are well-known. Perhaps less known is the fact that one of the first pieces of legislation Sarney signed into law while Acting President during Neves's illness sent shock waves through the national film industry, which was already suffering one of the worst economic crises of its recent history.

It was inevitable that after the demise of the series of military dictatorships that ruled Argentina so violently between 1976 and 1983, the return to democratic institutions would occasion an outpouring of the kinds of writing and cultural activities banned or censored by the generals. Movie distributors in Argentina today cannot keep up with the demand for films that could not be seen during these years (or were seen only with extensive and capricious cuts). Theaters are competing with each other to present works dealing with human rights violations and related themes. Television programming, which the military assiduously controlled, has now begun to evince some social consciousness. Meanwhile, the print media have filled bookstores and kiosks with myriad publications bearing witness to the attempt to recover a cultural tradition altered and fragmented by the so-called Proceso de Reorganización Nacional.

Not since the heyday of foreign tax missions in the 1960s has tax reform been discussed as intensively in Latin America. During the 1980s, major tax reforms took place in Mexico, Bolivia, Argentina, and Colombia, and somewhat similar reforms occurred in the previous decade in Chile and Uruguay. Moreover, tax reform seems to be climbing higher on the policy agenda in countries as diverse as Guatemala, Venezuela, Paraguay, and Peru.