Credit in times of stress: lessons from Latin America

The 2007-09 global financial crisis disrupted the provision of credit in Latin America less than previous crises. We identify key initial macroeconomic conditions that contributed to the higher resilience of real credit in Latin America during this episode. These relate to economies' capacity to withstand an external financial shock and the scope for countercyclical macroeconomic policies. We also show that in most cases current macroeconomic fundamentals have deteriorated relative to those in 2007.