There has been much interest of late regarding the current commodity “super cycle”. However, even sizing the current boom implies knowledge of long-run trends that are notoriously difficult to estimate. This paper uses new techniques to identify breaks in commodity prices and estimate trends...

There are many sources of inflation forecasts for Latin America. The International Monetary Fund, Latin Focus, the Economist Intelligence Unit and other consulting companies all offer inflation forecasts. However, these sources do not provide any probability measures regarding the risk of...

There is widespread concern that recent increases in international food prices may have significant effects on domestic food prices and inflation. This note assesses the impact of the recent food price shock on food, non-food and consumer inflation in the countries of Latin American and the...

This paper analyzes capital inflow surges in emerging economies from 1980 to 2005. Estimated probit models are used, which discriminate well between surges associated with banking crises or recessions, and those surges that end without such events. The results indicate that the composition of...

This paper proposes a new taxonomy of Sudden Stops comprised of seven categories with definitions depending on the behavior of gross and net capital flows. The incidence of different types of Sudden Stops is tracked over time and the type of Sudden Stop related to economic performance. Sudden...

En este trabajo se analizan modelos alternativos de clasificación soberana emergente. Aunque un número pequeño de indicadores económicos fundamentales explica las clasificaciones de manera razonablemente precisa, las variaciones de esos indicadores económicos fundamentales se pueden...

We suggest that foreign banks may represent a trade-off for their developing country hosts. A portfolio model is developed to show that a more diversified international bank may be one of lower, overall risk and less susceptible to funding shocks but may react more to shocks that affect expected...

(Disponible en idioma inglés únicamente) El mercado de los bancos o los riesgos de las operaciones han aumentado apreciablemente en los últimos años, principalmente como resultado del crecimiento de los activos líquidos en los balances generales de los bancos y el aumento de las actividades...

The literature on aid effectiveness has focused more on recipient policies than the determinants of aid allocation yet a consistent result is that political allies obtain more aid from donors than non-allies. This paper shows that aid allocated to political allies is ineffective for growth,...

El dinero se utiliza como una reserva de valor, un medio de intercambio y una unidad de cuenta. Los más recientes análisis sobre la elección de moneda en un escenario internacional se han enfocado en la denominación de reservas—el rol de reserva de valor. Sin embargo, la información...