The 2007 Report on Economic and Social Progress in Latin America analyzes the nature and evolution of sovereign debt in Latin America and discusses the policies that can be followed by countries and international financial institutions (IFIs) to reduce the vulnerabilities associated with it....

The 2007 Report on Economic and Social Progress in Latin America analyzes the nature and evolution of sovereign debt in Latin America and discusses the policies that can be followed by countries and international financial institutions (IFIs) to reduce the vulnerabilities associated with it....

Financial dollarization in Latin America has been growing over time in spite of a major reduction in inflation and a shift toward central bank independence. After discussing the key stylized facts of dollarization and dedollarization in the region, we discuss the risks this process poses to the...

This paper tests the efficiency of different structures of bank ownership in terms of its ability to target manufacturing sectors in need of credit. We find that state- owned banks do not play a significant role in the development of industries that rely more on external finance and/or that have...

The future of structural reforms in Latin America is under discussion. The purpose of this document is to synthesize the facts and opinions that underlie this debate. The first section shows that although the reform process has not ground to a halt, it has been incomplete and uneven, both across...

This paper shows that budget deficits account for a relatively small fraction of debt growth and that stock-flow reconciliation, which is often considered a residual entity, is one of the key determinants of debt dynamics. After having explained the importance of the stock-flow reconciliation,...

Inflation can grease the wheels of the labor market by relaxing downward wage rigidity but it can also increase uncertainty and have a negative sand effect. This paper studies the grease effect of inflation by looking at whether the interaction between inflation and labor market regulations...

This paper presents a new dataset on electoral systems and outlines its potential uses in further research exploring the connections between electoral systems and economic outcomes. The dataset provides indicators of the degree to which individual politicians can further their careers by...

This paper examines whether bank ownership (public versus private, domestic versus foreign) is correlated with bank lending behavior over the business cycle. The paper finds that state-owned banks may play a useful credit-smoothing role because their lending is less responsive to macroeconomic...

The objective of this paper is to use opinion polls to document Latin Americans' increasing discontent with reforms and to explore possible explanations for this trend. We test four possible explanations for the rejection of reforms. The first focuses on a change in political orientation. The...