Financial turmoil is becoming a fact of life in Latin America. The 1990s have been characterized by enormous volatility in the magnitude and cost of capital flows. The correlation of capital swings across disparate countries suggests that the quality of emerging market policies in addition to...

This paper reviews and contributes to the policy debate on the issue of saving in Latin America, presenting an alternative perspective on the relationship between saving and growth, saving and inflation stabilization and structural reform, and saving and capital flows.

The sharp differences between financial markets as they exist in Latin America and how we might expect them to look under full integration suggest that the financial constraints on Latin American economic development have much to do with the region's financial markets' incomplete integration in...

Latin America is volatile - about two to three times as volatile as the industrial economies. It is more volatile than any region other than Africa and the Middle East. Latin America's access to international financial markets is sporadic, and often disappears just when it would be most valuable.

This paper reviews recent experience with international capital flows in Latin America, and discusses the policy issues that surround them. The paper is predicated on three basic premises. Capital flows to the region are an important source of macroeconomic disturbance. Also, capital flows are...

Latin America's enormous endowment of natural resources impacts many countries of the region. Economic liberalization in several countries was followed by rapid growth of foreign investment and exports of natural resource-intensive products. Growth of labor-intensive manufacturing industries was...

This paper discusses the ways in which macroeconomic developments can put stress on banks, and in extreme cases lead to banking crises. These macroeconomic causes of bank vulnerability and crisis have important implications for regulatory regimes, and for macroeconomic policy itself. Much of the...