In the great majority of Latin American countries in the 2000s, economic growth took place and brought about improvements in almost all labour market indicators and consequent reductions in poverty rates. Across countries, economic growth was not all that mattered; external factors were...

This paper provides evidence on the incidence of poverty among the elderly in Latin America and the Caribbean, based on household survey microdata from 20 countries. The situation of older people is characterized in terms of income, employment, education, health and access to services vis-à-vis...

We use 292 household surveys from 18 Latin American countries to document patterns in secondary school graduation rates over the period 1990-2010. We find that enrollment and graduation rates increased during that period while dropout rates decreased. We provide two types of explanations for...

Latin American has the longest history of regional integration efforts in the developing world. This paper analyzes the experience of regional monetary cooperation in Latin America over the past three decades. This experience has been overall successful but also uneven, both in terms of country...

Trade integration and free trade agreement (FTA)-led cooperation between Asia and Latin America has increased since the early 2000s. Using new criteria, this paper examines whether Asia-Latin America FTAs have facilitated market-led integration by liberalizing trade and behind the border...

Driven by the increasingly important role of supply chains in global production, this paper studies empirical association between global credit-market shocks and firm behavior towards liquidity needs across countries and industries. Focusing on the adjustment of working-capital financing, we...

Focusing on the adjustment of working-capital financing, we find two pieces of supporting evidence from international firm-level panel data covering the period 2002:I-2012:IV. First, for industries where specific investment in the input supplier-customer relationship is large, firms are more...

This paper attempts to draw out the implication of the financial crisis for emerging markets. The most important implications will center on financial markets, where there will be less reliance on portfolio capital flows to finance investment and some deglobalization of banking so that the...

In this paper, we examine capital account openness and exchange rate flexibility in 11 Asian economies. Asia has made slow progress in de jure capital account openness, but has made much more progress in de facto capital account openness. While there has been a gradual increase in exchange rate...

The first decade of economic and monetary union in Europe (EMU) has been a huge success. EMU has significantly benefited its member countries and accelerated the European integration process. Imbalances within EMU — differences in growth, inflation, competitiveness, current account and budget...