Analyzing the experience of Mexico under the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), 'Lessons from NAFTA' aims to provide guidance to Latin American and Caribbean countries considering free trade agreements with the United States. The authors conclude that the treaty raised external trade...

This paper analyzes the consequences of alternative financial structures for financial efficiency and stability. The focus is on the organizational structure of banks. Alternative bank structures range from 'narrow banks' to broad 'universal banks.' Each banking structure is assessed in its...

This paper provides an overview of the reserve requirement measures undertaken by the Central Bank of Peru. It provides a rationale for the use of these instruments as well as empirical evidence of their effectiveness. In general, the results show that tightening reserve requirements has the...

The importance of having in place a financial regulatory framework that includes macro-prudential regulations was fully recognized during the recent global financial crisis. A central lesson from that episode was that relying on regulations that solely assessed the risks that financial...

Los sistemas de garantía son instrumentos que tratan de mitigar las disfunciones que genera la exigencia de garantías a los empresarios en las operaciones crediticias. En este trabajo se diagnostican los efectos no deseados que provocan las reglas internacionales en el acceso al financiamiento...

Access to finance remains a challenge for Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in Argentina. It is a particularly acute problem among newly created SMEs that have a scant credit record and frequently lack collateral. The authors of this paper carried out a pilot test of an innovative psychometric...

The World Economic Forum (WEF) views competitiveness as the potential of a country to grow in a sustained way over the medium to long term and thus create prosperity for its citizens. The Global Competitiveness Index (GCI), developed by Professor Xavier Sala-i-Martin of Columbia University...

The Bank has prepared a new set of strategies, presented in this volume, for the two overarching objectives established (Sustainable Economic Growth and Poverty Reduction and Promotion of Social Equity) and for each of the four priority areas highlighted in the Institutional Strategy...

For women microentrepreneurs, access to financial services matters. It is critical to their ability to make productive investments in their businesses. As part of IDB's efforts to strengthen women's roles in economic development, the Women in Development Unit undertook a study to analyze the...