Chile and Mexico experienced severe economic crises in the early 1980s. This paper analyzes four possible explanations for why Chile recovered much faster than did Mexico. Comparing data from the two countries allows us to rule out a monetarist explanation, an explanation based on falls in real...

The 1990s ushered the world not only into a democracy wave, following the collapse of the former Soviet Union, but also into a wave of Fiscal Rules, where the number of countries adopting this fiscal regime steadily rose from only 10 in 1990 to 97 in 2009. Countries that depend on hydrocarbons,...

During the past two decades, Latin American countries have made pioneering efforts in reforming infrastructure services. The "first generation of reforms" encompassed widespread privatization, deregulation and restructuring of the provision of energy, water, transport and telecommunications...

We study the cyclical behavior of labor productivity in eighty industries of the Chilean manufacturing sector in the 1979-2001 period. We find that labor productivity at the sector level is procyclical but it is a-cyclical when using aggregate data. We pr

Dollarization brought price stability and higher economic growth to Ecuador. Nevertheless, unemployment remained stubbornly high. Two opposing forces explain this result: sustained growth led to higher labor demand but price stabilization triggered substitution effects by cheaper intermediate...

Over the last decade, Chile has undertaken remarkable reforms and transferred publicly owned utilities to the private sector either by selling the assets or through concession agreements. Because of the reforms the country has been able to attract private participation in the provision of public...