A second-generation model of currency crises is combined with a standard model ofbanks as providers of insurance against liquidity risk. In a pegged exchange rateregime, after funds have been committed to the banks, news arrives about the qualityof the banks’ assets and about the exchange rate...

Small farmers and "minifundistas" tend to be among the poorest segment of the rural population in Latin America. However, preliminary work albeit rather sketchy, suggests that there is a great heterogeneity within the rural poor with respect to income, education, access to services, security of...

Since 1989, the Bank has given increasing support to Mexico's National Solidarity Program (PRONASOL) in projects for education, health, transportation, and regional development. Despite the Bank's growing association with PRONASOL, given its magnitude and complexity, it is easy to underestimate...

In 1992, LATAD initiated a regional activity aimed at assessing the relative merits of various initiatives to deal with price instability and price risk management in general. Analytical work in price bands (Quiroz and Valdés) and the joint FAO/World Bank workshop in Santiago in October 1993...

The findings and policy implications presented in this paper are based on The World Bank Comparative Study of Agricultural Pricing Policies in Developing Countries, which examined agricultural pricing interventions in eighteen developing countries during 1960-- 85, as well as on the evolution...

With the strong trade reforms in the late 1980s and early 1990s, many countries in the Latin America and the Caribbean region are facing new policy and institutional challenges. On the policy front there are two major challenges. The first is to maintain open trade regimes in the face of...

The City (or Council) Manager--a career professional who handles budget, personnel, and implementation, leaving political matters to elected officials--has been adopted in more than a score of cities in LAC. City managers are found in more than 2,000 U.S. cities, making it the most widely used...

Historically, government in the Latin America and Caribbean Region has been highly centralized. In the past decade, a few countries have legislated devolution and sharing of important responsibilities to subnational governments, and, currently, most countries are either implementing that...

Many economists advocate the use of tradable water rights as the most efficient system for allocating scarce water resources among alternative economic uses. According to this view, a private market in tradable water rights would maximize the economic value of the resource; would help to reduce...