Microfinance institutions (MFIs) have been successful in providing credit to millions of low-income borrowers in groups previously excluded from formal financial services, but they often charge interest rates that many claim are excessive. We examine microfinance interest rates and their...

Private providers have become an important source of health care in Latin America, yet there is still little documentation on them, especially regarding their role as providers of preventive and public health interventions. This paper uses Demographic and Health Surveys from various Latin...

Tax expenditures are generally defined as those government expenditures carried out through tax legislation, regulations, and practices that reduce or defer taxes for some taxpayers. There is a general concern that the tax expenditures negatively affect the budget and tax policies, which in turn...

This paper assesses the institutional setting and productive impact of selected productive development policies (PDPs), institutions, and programs implemented in Peru during the period 1990-2007. The assessment is based on a simple, basic framework of a series of economic or market failures that...

This paper explores the link between Brazil's political institutions and its disappointing productivity and growth in recent decades. Although political institutions provide the president with incentives and the instruments to pursue monetary stability and fiscal discipline they simultaneously...

This paper provides evidence on the channels through which export promotion institutions affect bilateral trade using a sample of Latin American and Caribbean countries over the period 1995-2004. We find that these institutions have a larger impact on the extensive margin of exports, especially...