This article analyzes sovereign debt defaults in four Latin American countries — Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Mexico — for the period 1870-2012. The impact of sovereign defaults on real GDP growth is generally short-lived, while the impact in terms of output losses is deep and lasts long....

We construct economic policy uncertainty (EPU) indexes for a number of Latin American (LA) economies (Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Peru, Venezuela) and the region as a whole, based on reports in the Spanish press. Our measures are comparable across countries. We study the...