This paper reviews central banks’ legal reform in Latin America during the 1990s and discusses the status of central bank independence in the region. Based on this information, it builds a simplified index of central bank independence which, in addition to the commonly used criteria of...

Major mining commodity prices are inherently volatile and cyclical. High levels of investment in China have been a key driver in the strong world demand for minerals and metals over the past decade. The urbanization and industrialization of China has been an important factor behind the increase...

This paper estimates the size of the informal economy for 32 mainly Latin American and Caribbean countries in the early 2000s. Using a structural equation modeling approach, we find that a stringent tax system and regulatory environment, higher inflation, and dominance of the agriculture sector...

This paper investigates the role of structural reforms -financial reforms, trade liberalization, and privatization- as determinants of FDI inflows based on newly constructed dataset on structural reforms for 19 Latin American and 25 Eastern European countries between 1989 and 2004. Our main...

This paper reviews the nature of central bank involvement in 26 episodes of financial disturbance and crises in Latin America from the mid-1990s onwards. It finds that, except in a handful of cases, large amounts of central bank money were used to cope with large and small crises alike. Pouring...

A weakness of decentralization and overall tax reforms in Latin America is the lack of attention to adequate taxation at the subnational government. A reliance on shared taxes with extensive earmarking leads to weak subnational accountability and soft budget constraints. The paper explores the...

Despite the recent deterioration in the global economic environment, projections for the region involve only a modest worsening of the outlook. The October 2011 Regional Economic Outlook: Western Hemisphere cautions, however, that there are severe downside risks. A sharp slowdown in Asia, for...

Cover; Half Title; Title Page; Copyright Page; Table of Contents; List of contributors; Acknowledgments; Introduction: governing in the extractive industries; Part I Legal, socio-political and institutional contexts of extraction; 1 Tendencies in tension: resource governance and social...

This collection of papers delivered at a seminar, moderated by André Lara Resende, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, addresses the issues considered pertinent to the consolidation of stability, the recovery of growth, and the process of stabilization undertaken in the aftermath of the inflationary...