This paper provides a brief historical journey of central banking in Latin America to shed light on the debate about monetary policy in the post-global financial crisis period. The paper distinguishes three periods in Latin America’s central bank history: the early years, when central banks...

As the globalization of financial markets continues, we urgently need to understand the crises that have plagued these markets and the policies best suited to preventing such crises in the future. In this book, a prominent group of economists and policymakers blend conceptual analysis and policy...

This paper explores the effects of central bank independence (CBI) on inflation in a sample of 24 Latin American and Caribbean countries during 1985-2002. Using panel regressions, the paper finds a negative relationship between CBI and inflation. This result holds for three alternative measures...