Foreign Direct Investment versus other Flows to Latin America

The central question tackled here is that of the desirability of foreign direct investment over other flows, such as bank lending. There has been an undoubted rise in FDI flows as a proportion of all flows to the Latin American region, but how much of the cause is supply- or demand-driven remains unclear. Analyses presented in this volume appear to demonstrate that FDI is no better and no worse than other flows for growth and for crisis resistance and, in some cases, may even be a signal of an economy's ill health. Contrary views, however, are also presented. Where governments compete for FDI