Loan diversification is a typical mechanism used by financial institutions to minimize their portfolio risk. However, diversification might not always be beneficial in response to the complex task of monitoring credit risks and the associated incentives. For instance, a highly diversified bank...

Based on the information of Argentine banks during the period 1998-2005, this paper analyzes if the bank loan portfolio was efficient in the sense of prioritizing the productive sectors with higher growth and stability. The statistical and econometrical response of the study is an unequivocal...

Until the eruption of the 2007-2008 international crisis, the decade was characterized by a high growth of credit –especially credit lines for consumption– and of GDP in a large part of the developed and developing worlds. By the end of the period, the process coincided with increasing...

Working on a sample of OECD countries spanning the period 1970-2003, this paper contributes to the literature on the Feldstein-Horioka puzzle by making three main innovations: First, it goes beyond the traditional national-level investment-saving equations to estimate, for the first time,...

There exists a widespread perception that Argentine households channel a large share of their savings into real state. However, no hard evidence has produced to date to measure how important this saving behavior is for the determination of housing prices vis-à-vis the traditional housing motive...

This study uses for the first time household survey data from a number of Latin American countries to investigate the degree and effects of the access to credit on the income and education of poor households. With this goal in mind, multivariate regressions are run to estimate the impact of the...

En este libro se presentan en forma sistemática las principales dimensiones asociadas al comercio de servicios, particularmente referido a Telecomunicaciones y Bancos, considerando las negociaciones internacionales, las regulaciones domésticas y su efecto restrictivo, la estructura y el...

Non-performing loans are an extremely relevant issue for central banks and for economic policy in general, as bank solvency and overall financial stability rely on the ability and willingness of borrowers to repay their debts. Based on annual information covering 1998-2005 from the credit bureau...

Working on a sample of OECD countries spanning the period 1970-2003, this paper contributes to the literature on the Feldstein-Horioka puzzle by making three main innovations: First, we estimate, for the first time, regressions between investment and saving at the institutional sector level...