Why should multilateral lending exist in a world where private capital markets are well developed and governments have their own bilateral aid programs? If lending by the World Bank, IMF, and regional development banks has an independent rationale, it must rest on advantages generated by the...

On their fiftieth anniversary, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank were" extensively reviewed, both to mark the occasion and to consider, often critically roles and performance. This paper reviews the functions of the two institutions in light of their" evolution over the past...

The loans of the IMF, World Bank, and other multilateral development banks (MDBs) are excluded from debt restructuring. This is the result of their preferred creditor status. There are two justifications for the preferred creditor status of MDBs: (a) they give concessional loans, and (b) they...

The accumulation of international reserves by emerging markets raises the question of how to best utilize these funds. This paper explores two routes through which the pooling of reserves could enhance stability and welfare. First, the reserve pool could be used for emergency lending in response...

This paper adopts a flexible framework to assess both short- and long-run business cycle linkages between six Latin American (LA) countries and the four largest economies in the world (namely the US, the Euro area, Japan and China) over the period 1980:I-2011:IV. The result indicate that within...

The participation of U.S. service industry firms in Latin American markets for services consists mainly of the activities of U.S.-owned affiliates operating in Latin America and very little of direct exports of ser- vices from the U.S. The important policy issues thus involve barriers to the...

Average wages are considerably lower in agriculture than in the other sectors. We document this fact for thirteen countries ranging from rich (Canada, U.S.) to poor (India, Indonesia). We develop a measure of human capital that accounts for the selection of workers with different unobserved...

This paper analyzes the evolution of the U.S. trade relations with Latin America, investigating the possible path that these relations will take in the future. The data analyzed show that during the last 15 years or so there has been no significant loss in the U.S. aggregate competitive position...

The interplay between the tax laws of the United States and those of the countries of Latin America creates inducements for capital flight. Most Latin American countries tax only income originating within their boundaries. If other countries tax income of foreigners originating within their...

Bilateral donors use foreign aid to pursue soft power. We test the effectiveness of aid in reaching this goal by leveraging a new dataset on the precise commitment, implementation, and completion dates of Chinese development projects. We use data from the Gallup World Poll for 126 countries over...