This paper examines the question of how the path of real GDP in four important Latin American countries, Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Mexico, might have differed if the sharp run-up in borrowing during the late 1970s and early 1980s had not occurred. Specifically, we ask whether these countries...

Empirical estimates of the benefit of financial intermediation are constructed by examining the role played by local banks in facilitating syndicated loans to borrowers in emerging market countries. Assuming that local banks possess a superior monitoring ability, the market is ideal for studying...

This paper isolates the common themes and policy recommendations found in the capital flight literature, and evaluates their statistical, conceptual, and empirical foundations. We find that there is no basis for presuming a stable link between any measure of capital flight and a nation's growth...

This paper discusses the problems of international debt from the point of the of the evolution of U.S. policy. The first section presents a brief historical review of the international debt problems of the 1980s. The next section examines the situation as of early 1989: progress as well as...

We analyze capital flows to emerging markets in a framework that incorporates two quantitative measures of financial integration, the intensity of capital controls and the extent of cross-border listings, while controlling for traditional global (push) and country-specific (pull) factors. Two...

This paper addresses a phenomenon often noted in association with programs aimed at stabilizing high rates of inflation: a rise in the ex post real interest rate following implementation of the disinflation strategy. Such increases have been observed in connection with the stopping of European...

This paper considers how exchange controls, black markets, and forward-looking expectations condition the impact of exchange rate devaluations in developing countries. A model incorporating these features is developed to analyze the response of key external balance indicators to anticipated...

An analytic and accounting framework is presented for examining the evolution of the external positions of eight developing countries: Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Korea, Mexico, Peru, the Philippines, and Venezuela. The framework is used to analyze the historical paths of external debts in these...

Interest in income and price elasticities for international trade has increased recently because of the debt crisis that many developing countries are experiencing. Estimates of income elasticities of import demand, however, range from a low of 1.3 to a high of 4.7. Such differences have...

This paper develops measures of emerging market credit spreads for the 1990s, based on data on new bond issues and bank loans, that cover a broader range of borrowers than the Brady bond spreads most commonly used to date. These measures are used to identify the impacts of credit ratings,...