This paper investigates the relationship between monetary policy and growth in five Latin American countries (Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Peru).The analysis focuses on the effects of expected and unexpected monetary growth on output, and explicitly incorporates the relationship between...

We identify the timing of currency, banking crises and sudden stops in New Zealand from 1880 to 2008, and consider the extent to which empirical models can explain New Zealand's crisis history. We find that the cross country evidence on the determinants of crises fits New Zealand experience...

Foreign currency debt is widely believed to increase risks of financial crisis, especially after being implicated as a cause of the East Asian crisis in the late 1990s. In this paper, we study the effects of foreign currency debt on currency and debt crises and its indirect short and long run...

In this paper I analyze the role of openness and globalization in Latin America's economic development. The paper is divided into two distinct part: I first (Sections II through IV) provide an analysis of 60 years of the region's economic history, that go form the launching of the Alliance for...

We explore the association between income and international capital flows between 1880 and 1913. Capital inflows are associated with higher incomes per capita in the long-run, but capital flows also brought income volatility via financial crises. Crises also decreased growth rates of income per...

In this paper I use historical data to analyze the relationship between crises and growth in Latin America. I calculate by how much the region's GDP per capita has been reduced as a consequence of the recurrence of external crises. I also analyze the determinants of major balance of payments...

In this paper I analyze the nature of external adjustments in current account surplus countries. I ask whether a realignment of world growth rates -- with Japan and Europe growing faster, and the U.S. growing more slowly -- is likely to solve the current situation of global imbalances. The main...

Recent cross-country investigations of the role of institutional fundamentals such as the protection of property rights in promoting financial development have extended a literature that has for decades maintained that financial factors can affect real outcomes. In this paper we pursue this new...

This paper explores the relationship between the relative size of the Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) sector, economic growth, and poverty alleviation using a new database on the share of SME labor in the total manufacturing labor force. Using a sample of 45 countries, we find a strong,...

This paper examines whether financial development boosts the growth of small firms more than large firms and hence provides information on the mechanisms through which financial development fosters aggregate economic growth. We define an industry's technological firm size as the firm size...