This paper examines the determinants of waterborne transport costs, with particular emphasis on the efficiency at port level. Its main contribution is (1) to generate statistically quantifiable measures of port efficiency from a survey of Latin American common user ports, and (2) to estimate a...

The euro’s trade impact is clearly important for the nations that have already joined euroland. But the size and nature of the trade effects are even more important for the EU members who have not joined the euro: the UK, Denmark, Sweden and the ten new nations scheduled to join next year....

We develop a model that shows that inefficient legal protections, disproportionately increase financial restrictions for debtors that have less wealth. Due to fixed monitoring costs in equilibrium banks will not monitor small firms and therefore these firms will adopt risky technologies that...

Este trabajo estudia los flujos anuales de empleo y la productividad (media del trabajo) de un promedio anual de aproximadamente 3,500 plantas del sector manufacturero chileno durante el período 1980-1992. Las principales conclusiones son las siguientes: (i) Las plantas exhiben una...

The relevance of transport costs has increased as liberalization continues to reduce artificial barriers to trade. Countries need to adopt policies to “get closer†to global markets. Can improvements in infrastructure and regulation reduce transport costs? Is it worthwhile to implement...

This paper uses a new dataset to reassess the relationship between bank ownership and bank performance, providing separate estimations for developing and industrial countries. It finds that state-owned banks located in developing countries tend to have lower profitability and higher costs than...

The relevance of transport costs has increased as liberalization continues to reduce artificial barriers to trade. Countries need to adopt policies to get closer to global markets. Can improvements in infrastructure and regulation reduce transport costs? Is it worthwhile to implement policies...

We suggest that foreign banks may represent a trade-off for their developing country hosts. A portfolio model is developed to show that a more diversified international bank may be one of lower overall risk and less susceptible to funding shocks but may react more to shocks that affect expected...

In recent years, Latin American banking sectors have experienced an accelerated process of concentration and foreign penetration that has prompted diverse views regarding its implications for the competitive behavior of banks and for the financial stability of the system as a whole. Exploiting a...