This paper assesses Brazil's growth performance from a long-term perspective, using crosscountry and panel estimation techniques, building on the vast empirical literature on growth. The empirical evidence presented in this paper confirms that macroeconomic stability and several reforms have...

Purpose – This paper seeks to assess Brazil's growth performance from a long-term perspective. Brazil's growth performance over the past 25 years has been lackluster, and various hypotheses have been advanced to explain Brazil's disappointing growth record. Design/methodology/approach – In...

Benchmark following and portfolio rebalancing effects have often been cited when trying to explain international contagion phenomena. Using a dataset containing the country allocation of individual dedicated emerging market equity funds, we assess the relevance of mean-variance optimization and...

This paper examines the evolution of market structure in emerging market banking systems during the 1990s. While significant bank consolidation has been taking place in these countries, reflected in a sharp decline in the number of banks, this process has not systematically been associated with...

Does country transparency affect international portfolio investment? We examine this and related questions using some new measures of transparency and a unique micro dataset on international portfolio holdings. We distinguish between government and corporate transparency. There is clear evidence...

This paper examines the evolution of market structure in emerging markets banking systems during the 1990s. While a significant process of bank consolidation has been taking place in these countries, reflected in a sharp decline in the number of banks, this process has not systematically been...

Using company-level data, this paper examines the relative stock-market performance of firms with different foreign-exchange exposures around the time of the 1994/95 Mexican crisis. Contrary to what one might have expected given the alleged peso overvaluation, exporting firms outperformed the...

In this paper, we examine the degree of herding and momentum trading among emerging market mutual funds. We use a novel database containing the country holdings of hundreds of individual funds on a monthly basis for the period 1996-2000. Overall, there is substantial heterogeneity in the...

Intermediation spreads in Latin America are high by international standards. This paper examines the determinants of bank interest margins in that region using bank- and country-level data from 85 countries, including 14 Latin American economies. The results suggest that Latin America has higher...