We start out from the hypothesis that limited government leads to low uncertainty and low transaction costs. If political institutions affect the degree of uncertainty and transaction costs, we formally show they should affect the steady state level of income per capita. The impact of...

This paper discusses dollarization from the perspective of the relation between country and devaluation risk. In the absence of balance sheet effects, we find that a full dollarization of an economy increases its country risk. On the other hand, when balance sheet effects are present, the full...

This paper proposes theory and evidence on the relationship between inflation and the bank's portfolio allocation. The proposed idea rationalized what Rodriguez (1992) pointed out with respect to the Central Bank of Argentina, behaving as a "borrower of first resort", where banks reallocated...

The paper provides evidence on what affects at the margin the cost and availability of bank credit for firms in Argentina. We study in particular how banks use different pieces of private and public information to screen firms and overcome informational asymmetries in the credit market. Some...

After major banking crisis, investors and academics alike are left wondering how it could have been avoided. Crises can take an enormous toll on society. Mexico's 1994 crisis cost almost 10% of GDP. Chile's 1983 crisis was even worse, with the ¯nal cost amounting to a stunning 30% of GDP....