Although financial development is good for long-term growth, not all countries pursue policies that render full financial development. This paper builds on an extensive political economy literature to construct a theoretical model showing that the intensity of opposition to financial development...

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...

This paper complements previous studies by arguing that the low private savings ratio in Latin America can be associated with the limited confidence of households and businesses in domestic financial institutions. Previous studies have established a relationship between private savings and...

This paper argues that the investor reluctance to make long-term commitments to Latin American financial markets results from experience. In the 1980s, while ex ante real interest rates on Latin American financial assets were usually high, ex-post real interest rates were often highly negative....

This paper considers whether reserve requirements have been effective in controlling excessive liquidity growth. It also discusses the adequacy of bank supervisory standards, such as capital to risk-weighted asset standards, in controlling expansion of risky bank credit that often accompanies...

This paper estimates the impact of financial development on industry-level total factor productivity (TFP) growth using a largely unexploited panel of 77 countries with data for 26 manufacturing industries for the years 1963 to 2003. A significant relationship is found between financial...

This paper presents an integrated overview of the literature linking institutions, financial development and economic growth. From the large body of research on institutional development, the paper first selects those contributions that make it possible to study the role of institutional...

We explore the links between trust and a broad range of financial structure and development measures. Our base sample is a cross section of 48 countries and the analysis covers the period 1980-1994. We use a new World Bank data set that provides the most comprehensive coverage of financial...

Banking authorities must resolve or otherwise deal with existing banks that are weak or insolvent without imposing costs on consumers or taxpayers. Two aspects of this concern should be delineated. First, how can banking regulations be structured so that the future exit of weak and insolvent...