Understanding Latin America's recent economic performance calls for a multidisciplinary analysis. This handbook looks at the interaction of economics and politics in the region and includes a number of contributions from top academic experts who have also served as key policy makers, reflecting...

In this paper we test the impact of elections on fiscal policy in Latin American economies in comparison to OECD countries over the period 1990-2006. We find that in Latin American countries, the average primary balance declines by an amount close to 0.7 per cent of GDP during an election year,...