Virtually all Latin American and Caribbean countries have established specialized organizations to promote their exports. Existing analyses of these organizations are at best partial and fragmentary. This paper aims at overcoming these limitations of the literature by presenting a consistent,...

This paper provides evidence on the channels through which export promotion institutions affect bilateral trade using a sample of Latin American and Caribbean countries over the period 1995-2004. We find that these institutions have a larger impact on the extensive margin of exports, especially...

This paper explores the link between Brazil's political institutions and its disappointing productivity and growth in recent decades. Although political institutions provide the president with incentives and the instruments to pursue monetary stability and fiscal discipline they simultaneously...