Have the economies of Latin America become less volatile as a result of the economic stabilization and structural reforms implemented during the past decade? The answer is a qualified “yes. ” The reforms have helped, but more needs to be done to ensure the macroeconomic stability required...

Earnings inequality declined rapidly in Argentina, Brazil and Chile during the 2000s. A reduction in the experience premium is a fundamental driver of declines in upper-tail (90/50) inequality, while a decline in the education premium is the primary determinant of the evolution of lower-tail...

We suggest that foreign banks may represent a trade-off for their developing country hosts. A portfolio model is developed to show that a more diversified international bank may be one of lower, overall risk and less susceptible to funding shocks but may react more to shocks that affect expected...

This paper complements the findings of Atal, Ñopo and Winder (2009) on gender and ethnic wage gaps for 18 Latin American countries circa 2005 by analyzing gender wage gaps for the same countries between circa 1992 and circa 2007. During this span the overall gender earnings gaps dropped about 7...

This paper develops and applies a new approach to the estimation of the impact of economy-wide reforms on wage differentials, using a new high-quality data set on wage differentials by schooling level for 18 Latin American countries for the period 1980-1998. The results indicate that reform...

How does trade liberalization affect the wage gap between skilled workers and unskilled workers? The Heckscher-Ohlin (HO) trade model gives a prediction about the relation between wages and prices. However, its simple Stolper-Samuelson (SS) and Specific-Factors (SF) versions make opposite...

This paper exploits a rich collection of household surveys to investigate the wage differential between the public and private sectors in 17 Latin American countries during the 1980s and 1990s. The paper also studies how the sector of employment affects the gender wage gap. The paper finds very...

After decades of trial, error, and occasional regress, the pieces of a successful Latin American economic model can be seen scattered among the leading economies of the region. The most traditional macroeconomic maladies of the emerging world, such as chronic fiscal imbalances and monetary...

Financial turmoil is becoming a fact of life in Latin America. The 1990s have been characterized by enormous volatility in the magnitude and cost of capital flows. The correlation of capital swings across disparate countries suggests that the quality of emerging market policies in addition to...

Latin America is volatile--about two to three times as volatile as the industrial economies. It is more volatile than any region other than Africa and the Middle East. Latin America`s access to international financial markets is sporadic, and often disappears just when it would be most valuable