This paper focuses on the role of institutions in the fight against poverty and inequality. Our view of institutions encompasses formal rules designed by polity (including those in the legal and economics sphere such as rules of property rights, contracts and liabilities) as well as informal...

Latin America’s economic performance is mediocre at best, despite abundant natural resources and flourishing neighbors to the north. The perplexing question of how some of the wealthiest nations in the world in the nineteenth century are now the most crisis-prone has long puzzled economists...

The Latin American export in the manufacturing sector is 18% lower than the world average. Although between the 1980s and 1990s, the sophistication of exportable products increased by 13%, it is evident to see the low progress of the Latin American region to consolidate the change in its...

Latin America's economic performance is mediocre at best, despite abundant natural resources and flourishing neighbors to the north. The perplexing question of how some of the wealthiest nations in the world in the nineteenth century are now the most crisis-prone has long puzzled economists and...

Bad institutions are regularly blamed for poor economic performance, and Latin America is often used as the prime example of the potentially damaging effects of bad institutions on economic development. However, very little time-series analysis has been done to substantiate this claim, and in...

Bad institutions are regularly blamed for poor economic performance, and Latin America is often used as the prime example of the potentially damaging effects of bad institutions on economic development. However, very little time-series analysis has been done to substantiate this claim, and in...

This paper focuses on the role of "institutions" in the fight against poverty and inequality. Our view of institutions encompasses formal rules designed by polity (including those in the legal and economics sphere such as rules of property rights, contracts and liabilities) as well as informal...

In a panel framework that includes 18 countries, this paper studies the short and long run effect of financial development on economic growth and the determinants of financial development in Latin America. Financial development shows a positive effect on economic growth in the long run, but a...