This paper explores empirically the role of risk and return factors in the observed evolution of net foreign asset positions of a large number of industrial and developing economies. The paper adopts a dynamic approach in which investors’ portfolios adjust gradually to their long-run...

Public investment and infrastructure spending are often singled out for drastic cuts at times of fiscal retrenchment. Fiscal austerity in Latin America during the 1980s and 1990s was characterized by a sharp contraction in infrastructure spending. In 5 of the 9 major Latin American countries,...

This paper provides an overview of the current state of knowledge regarding the determinants of saving rates. In the context of this overview, the paper presents the main findings and contributions of the body of empirical research on saving determinants, complemented by the results of the...

How do countries hold their financial wealth? We construct a new database of countries’ claims on capital located at home and abroad, and international borrowing and lending, covering 68 countries from 1966 to 1997. We find that a small amount of capital flows from rich countries to poor...

There is widespread concern across Latin America that the provision of infrastructure services has suffered as a consequence of the retrenchment of the public sector and the insufficient response of the private sector to the opening up of infrastructure industries to private participation in...

There is a long-standing literature that shows that fiscal adjustment is often implemented through cuts in public investment, including infrastructure (Roubini and Sachs, 1989; Hicks, 1991; De Haan et al. 1996). In this respect, the present paper aims to provide a comprehensive overview of the evolution...

FDI flows to developing countries surged in the 1990s, to become their leading source of external financing. This rise in FDI volume was accompanied by a marked change in its composition: investment taking the form of acquisition of existing assets (M&A) grew much more rapidly than investment in...

Latin American has lost substantial ground relative to other developing and developed regions in terms of the quality and quantity of infrastructure over the last two decades. For instance, Latin America’s infrastructure gap in infrastructure growth relative to that of the seven successful...