This report aims to provide a basis for understanding the strengths and weaknesses of the current system, in comparison to rail systems elsewhere in the world, and provide an analytical basis for identification of opportunities for further improvement. It also discusses risks in relation to...

How to protect "captive shippers" from monopolistic abuses by a railway? In an "open access" system, it's straightforward: provide infrastructure access to a competing train operating company. In a system without open access - as in, for example, the United States, Canada, Mexico, and Brazil -...

Despite the recovery of economic growth in Latin America during the 1990s, rising unemployment, high informality rates and sluggish wages lie at the root of high inequality and poverty. This paper looks at changes in hourly earnings from the early 1990s to the early 2000s in three relatively...

The paper examines the applicability of GDP-linked bonds for the financing of developing countries and emerging markets. GDP-linked bonds are bonds of which the coupon and/or redemption payments are tied to the GDP of the issuing country. The study encompasses a detailed empirical analysis of...

This paper studies the historical origins of the federalist institutions in Mexico and Brazil. Using a bargaining game model, I argue that the type of commodities each country produced by the end of the nineteenth Century determined the negotiation power of local governments. This led to the...