Over the last five years, most Latin American governments have made considerable strides in managing the composition of their public debt, while reducing their foreign-currency exposure. Issuing public debt in local currency is not new for Latin America; what is new, however, is the widespread...

The “raw materials curse” is far from being an inevitability, as shown by Norway and Chile. Both examples offer valuable lessons to developing countries on how to sensibly manage mining and oil resources. Following Norway’s example, Chile could build upon its experience and become a key...

Financial actors from developing countries are playing with other OECD financial giants as equals through their Sovereign Wealth Funds (SWFs). SWFs could become major actors of development finance if they chose to allocate 10 per cent of their portfolio to emerging and developing economies over...

During the 1990s and the 2000s a variety of crises affected the stability of international capital markets: from the European Monetary System crisis in 1992-93 and the emerging market crises to today’s financial crisis have been present in the arenas of capital markets. These crises stimulated...

The Democratic Banker (03/2007) (Other Languages : FR / ES) Policy Insights No.38 by Javier Santiso Banks contribute not only to the economic development of emerging countries but also to political development. International bank flows in an emerging country tend to grow during the three years...

China's growing influence on Africa and on Latin America has, to some extent, overshadowed the rise of another emerging market giant in the East: India. This other Asian emerging presence is also symbolic of the rapid redesigning of the global economic map. Europe, Japan and the United States...

Are the financial markets politically correct? In other words, do they have preferences when it comes to political regimes or partisans? This issue has often been explored with regard to foreign direct investment (FDI) or public development aid, but rarely in relation to portfolio flows in...

China’s trade impact on Latin America is positive via an export boom and indirectly better terms of trade. Its emergence is also a wake up call for the region: more reforms are needed, especially in infrastructure, in order to maintain Latin America’s comparative advantage. The Chinese...

Latin American Countries vary widely in their institutional capacity to conduct economic policy analysis. Capacity for policy analysis is a necessary condition for economic reform but capacity for implementation is also needed. The point of contact between these two capacities - to analyse and...

Risk-based public debt management and liquid domestic bond markets are important mutually reinforcing strategies for emerging financial markets and developing countries in general.