Im populären und politischen Diskurs werden häufig ökonomische Verhältnisse (wie Armut, Ungleichheit oder Wachstumsschwäche) als Gründe für die Entstehung und den Export von Terrorismus aus ärmeren Ländern genannt. Zugleich gelten wirtschaftlich erfolgreiche Staaten häufig als Ziele...

We infer determinants of Latin American hyperinflations and stabilizations by using the method of maximum likelihood to estimate a hidden Markov model that potentially assigns roles both to fundamentals in the form of government deficits that are financed by money creation and to destabilizing...

This Working Paper investigates the possible link between gender inequalities in the labour market and significant economic outcomes such as income growth, poverty and inequality indicators. Our analysis is based on microsimulations for eight Latin American countries. We consider four aspects of...

During the 1990s, conditional cash transfers (CCTs) were adopted by countries across Latin America as central elements of their poverty reduction strategies. Alongside other developments in the area of social assistance, CCTs represent an opportunity for countries to develop an integrated and...

This paper challenges the conventional view according to which disinflations in LAC-even from low and moderate peaks-have been carried out at no cost to output. After suggesting a new methodology that allows for long-lived effects and inflation inertia when measuring costs of disinflations,...

There is a heated debate on the effects of Foreign Direct Investment on development. Proponents argue that FDI is good for development, and hence the rapid expansion of FDI in Latin America in the past decade and a half is manna from heaven. In some cases, it is indeed difficult to imagine...

The currency crisis in Brazil and its adverse effects on neighboring countries are widely perceived to be short-lived phenomena. However, optimists—stressing favorable growth and investment prospects in Latin America—tend to ignore home-made causes of Brazil's crisis and -underrate the risks...

Most Latin American countries have made considerable progress in implementing the core recommendations of the Washington Consensus. The comparison with fast-growing Asian countries shows, however, that higher and more broadbased growth can only be achieved with more comprehensive reforms which...