This paper deals with the reform to labor market regulation implemented by Chile during the last twenty years. We concentrate on the reform to job security, on the decentralization of the wage bargaining process, and on the reduction in payroll taxes. Our interest is to understand to what extent...

This paper analyzes the effectiveness of capital controls, in particular the Chilean experience with the use of the unremunerated reserve requirement. We examine the effects on interest rates, real exchange rate, and the volume and composition of capital inflows. The effects are elusive and it...

Chile has become a model for reforming economies throughout the world. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the political and economic circumstances surrounding Chile's unilateral trade liberalization during five stages (covering the period 1974-1990s),each being characterized by different...

As the recent Mexican crisis vividly illustrates, Latin American countries often go through boom-bust cycles caused by both domestic policies and external shocks. Such cycles are typically magnified by weak banking systems which intermediate large capital inflows. This paper develops a simple...

I use data on 180 sovereign defaults to analyze what determines the recovery rate after a debt restructuring process. Why do creditors recover, in some cases, more than 90%, while in other cases they recover less than 10%? I find support for the Grossman and Van Huyk model of “excusable...

I analyze whether countries with flexible exchange rates are able to pursue an independent monetary policy, as suggested by traditional theory. I use data for three Latin American countries with flexible exchange rates, inflation targeting, and capital mobility – Chile, Colombia and Mexico –...

We analyze the way in which social security privatization reform affects labor market outcomes. We develop a model of the labor market where we assume that, as is the case in most emerging markets, a formal and an informal sectors coexist side by side. According to our model, a social security...

As the recent Mexican crisis vividly illustrates, Latin American countries often go through boom-bust cycles caused by both domestic policies and external shocks. Such cycles are typically magnified by weak banking systems which intermediate large capital inflows. This paper develops a simple...