The authors study how contagion affects bank lending spreads and fluctuations in output in Argentina. They analyze what determines bank lending spreads when verification and enforcement costs for loan contracts are high. They present estimates of a vector auto-regression model that relates bank...

This paper presents a model that integrates intertemporal and forward-looking behavior in investment and consumption decisions in a multisectoral general equilibrium framework applicable to developing countries. It formulates and uses an infinite-horizon growth model to examine the adjustment,...

Arguments for financing infrastructure development through government subsidies and foreign borrowing meet with increasing skepticism. Numerous"white elephants"subsidized by governments have strengthened doubts about the efficacy of public finance, and the debt-servicing problems of the 1980s...

Measuring bank efficiency is difficult because there is no satisfactory definition of bank output. Neither the number of accounts nor total assets, total loans, nor total deposits provide a good index of output. Moreover, the value added of banks - given by their labor costs and profits -...

Central to the effectiveness of financial policies geared towards promoting real business investment is the interaction between corporations'financing and investment decisions. The objectives of this paper are twofold : 1) develop an integrated approach towards the problem of optimal corporate...

Private business investment has expanded remarkably in Colombia's recent economic recovery. Sustained expansion of this investment is considered crucial to continued economic growth and increases in production. Having analyzed demand, the cost of capital, and the availability and allocation of...

The authors compare the experiences of selected Asian countries in attracting different forms of external financing and examine how that financing has contributed to growth. They carry out the analysis for two subgroups - South Asian and ASEAN countries - with distinctly different dominant forms...

Many government programs want to provide more credit to the farm sector to increase agricultural productivity. If the marginal effect on productivity is small, those resources might be put to better use elsewhere. The authors conducted an econometric analysis of the effect of credit on output...

The author proposes and estimates a microeconomic investment model to determine the relative importance of three explanations for Mexico's investment decline in the early 1980s: the decline in oil prices; the termination of capital inflows; and the effects of debt overhang and uncertainty. He...

Previous approaches to credit policy in the stabilization and adjustment of developing countries have emphasized either the role of the availability of credit or the role of its price - that is, the interest rate. The authors argue that effective credit policy in developing countries must take...