It has long been believed that commodity price variability causes problems for primary producing and dependent countries. This paper tests the effects of price uncertainty (volatility) on economic growth. The model is constructed using a yearly panel data for the ten biggest countries in South...

This paper finds that shocks to net financial inflows, world oil prices, the U.S. growth rate, and the lagged real exchange rate explain most of the fluctuations in Mexico’s annual growth since 1979. The paper also estimates how the effects of these external constraints have changed since...

Corruption and income inequality have developed into a threat throughout Latin America. Their expansion generates a sense of urgency to confront the problem. Both perversely influence business decisions despite inherently sound macroeconomic reforms. Empirical evidence for twenty Latin American...

After a decade of economic and political reforms that dramatically altered the structure of economies in Latin America, poverty and high inequality remain deeply entrenched. Integration into the global economy in the 1990s brought increased prosperity only to a small minority of households in...

This research empirically analyzes the relationship between religion distribution and economic performance for a number of Latin American countries. The econometric results using time-series cross-sectional data yield consistent yet relatively mild estimates. Religion as a conduit for modifying...

The economic history of Argentina presents one of the most dramatic examples of divergence in the modern era. What happened and why? This paper reviews the wide range of competing explanations in the literature and argues that, setting aside deeper social and political determinants, the various...

This paper uses time-series data from nineteen Latin American countries and the U.S. to test for income convergence using two existing definitions of convergence and a new testable definition of ?-convergence. Only Dominican Republic and Paraguay were found to pair-wise converge according to the...

This paper uses time-series data from nineteen Latin American countries and the U.S. to test for income convergence using two existing definitions of convergence and a new testable definition of β-convergence. Only Dominican Republic and Paraguay were found to pair-wise converge according to...

This paper tests for convergence using time series data from nineteen Latin American countries over the period 1945-2000 with two existing notions of convergence and with a herein proposed testable definition of β-convergence. The results show that only one pair of countries, Dominican Republic...

One goal of China's Go Out policy is to create goodwill in countries around the world. At the same time, China's growing economic engagement has provoked much criticism. This paper is the first to study whether these activities change the attitudes of individuals in developing countries towards...