The value of equity market transactions in emerging economies soared from about 2 percent of the world total in 1986 to 12 percent in 1996. This boom was accompanied by an explosion of international capital flows, especially flows into developing country stock markets. Moreover, while equity...

There is growing discontent with the conventional wisdom concerning economic policy. The unhappy fact seems to be that a stable macroeconomic environment may be necessary but not sufficient to coax the desired outcomes from liberalized financial systems. This paper reviews several promising...

Has financial liberalization improved the efficiency with which investment funds are allocated to competing uses? In this paper, we address this question using firm-level panel data from 12 developing countries. We develop a summary index of the efficiency of investment allocation that measures...

Este trabajo intenta responder a la pregunta de cuál ha sido el efecto de la liberalización comercial y financiera sobre la desigualdad y la pobreza en América Latina. Para esto, proponemos una metodología para estimar el efecto de la liberalización económica sobre la desigualdad y la...

Since the mid-1980s a profound change of direction in the structural policies of the region has taken place. The development model based on protecting national markets and state intervention was replaced by a set of policies aimed primarily at seeking to improve efficiency, facilitate the...

Este documento es una actualización del trabajo original, y tiene como objeto describir y medir el avance de las reformas estructurales, utilizando para ello un índice de políticas estructurales que resume el estado de progreso de las políticas en las áreas comercial, financiera,...

Distributional consequences typically receive limited attention in economic models that analyze the effects of monetary and financial sector policies. These consequences deserve more attention since financial markets are incomplete, imperfect, and economic agents' access to them is often...

This paper aims at analyzing the relationship between capital account liberalization,economic performance and macroeconomic stability in Brazil. For this purpose,besides a revision in the literature, the paper develops an empirical study on the effects of financial liberalization in Brazil on a...

We discuss the current state of the European banking system and the major challenges for the future. The low interest rate environment may give rise to asset price bubbles and interest rate risk, which should be counteracted by macroprudential regulation. Overcapacities in banking should be...

This paper shows that the liberalisation of foreign direct investment (FDI) tends to make the effect of labour costs on domestic investment and labour demand more negative. Using data from Germany, it then provides evidence that is consistent with this view. First, high unit labour costs...