Have the economies of Latin America become less volatile as a result of the economic stabilization and structural reforms implemented during the past decade? The answer is a qualified “yes. ” The reforms have helped, but more needs to be done to ensure the macroeconomic stability required...

This paper provides a summary of the work in seven papers of a Latin American Research Network project intended to identify the following information. The private and public determinants of child anthropometrics; The extent to which the private and public determinants interact and whether...

This paper discusses the ways in which macroeconomic developments can put stress on banks, and in extreme cases lead to banking crises. These macroeconomic causes of bank vulnerability and crisis have important implications for regulatory regimes, and for macroeconomic policy itself. Much of the...

What are the reasons for and the costs of Latin America`s volatility? Because there is no consensus on these fundamental questions, there is no consensus on the appropriate policy response to macroeconomic volatility in Latin America, and other shock-prone countries. This paper provides new...

Financial turmoil is becoming a fact of life in Latin America. The 1990s have been characterized by enormous volatility in the magnitude and cost of capital flows. The correlation of capital swings across disparate countries suggests that the quality of emerging market policies in addition to...

(Disponible unicamente en Inglés) Recientemente se ha reavivado el interés en la relación entre las variaciones en las estructuras etarias de las poblaciones y diversos resultados económicos. Esas variaciones son producto de cambios en las tasas de fertilidad y mortalidad que se producen...

The Mexican oil boom was characterized by a period of high investment, followed by capital flight. The private sector and households responded to the 1977-1981 windfall by attaining high savings rates. On the other hand, the Mexican government, the proprietor of the state oil company and the...

There is a recent renewal of interest in the relation between shifts in age structures of populations and various economic outcomes. These shifts are triggered by changes in fertility and mortality that take place some years before becoming apparent in the standard age structure and that may...

This paper develops and applies a new approach to the estimation of the impact of economy-wide reforms on wage differentials, using a new high-quality data set on wage differentials by schooling level for 18 Latin American countries for the period 1980-1998. The results indicate that reform...

The sharp differences between financial markets as they exist in Latin America and how we might expect them to look under full integration suggest that the financial constraints on Latin American economic development have much to do with the region`s financial markets` incomplete integration in...