(Disponible en idioma inglés únicamente) En este documento se revisa la obra publicada teórica y empírica sobre el papel de los bancos propiedad del Estado y también se presentan algunos resultados nuevos y un análisis de validez. Se muestra que la banca propiedad del Estado de países en...

This paper surveys the theoretical and empirical literature on the role of state-owned banks and also presents some new results and a robustness analysis. The paper shows that state-owned banks located in developing countries have fiscal costs because they are characterized by lower returns than...

This paper examines whether bank ownership (public versus private, domestic versus foreign) is correlated with bank lending behavior over the business cycle. The paper finds that state-owned banks may play a useful credit-smoothing role because their lending is less responsive to macroeconomic...

According to recent research, external factors and political governance considerations are key determinants of capital flows in Latin America. We postulate that corporate governance is a crucial determinant as well. We show that while the region is characterized by relatively low levels of...

Latin America suffered a profound state crisis in the 1980s, which prompted not only the wave of macroeconomic and deregulation reforms known as the Washington Consensus, but also a wide variety of institutional or 'second generation' reforms. 'The State of State Reform in Latin America' reviews...

Regional integration initiatives have long been part of the world economic landscape. In Latin America, integration flourished in the early post-war era but then lost momentum until the 1990s, when there was a new wave of initiatives ranging from free trade areas to customs unions. This Report...

Credit supplied by the banking sector is the most important funding source for firms and households in Latin America and the Caribbean. Unfortunately, credit is scarce, costly and volatile. Without deep and stable credit markets, the region will be hard pressed to achieve high and sustainable...

The objective of this paper is to use opinion polls to document Latin Americans` increasing discontent with reforms and to explore possible explanations for this trend. We test four possible explanations for the rejection of reforms. The first focuses on a change in political orientation. The...

There is by now a large literature that describes and discusses discontent with the process of pro-market reforms that is usually subsumed under the heading of the "Washington Consensus" (Williamson, 1990) and often associated with the process of "globalization" (for a survey see Lora and...

The objective of this paper is to use opinion polls to document Latin Americans` increasing discontent with reforms and to explore possible explanations for this trend. We test four possible explanations for the rejection of reforms. The first focuses on a change in political orientation. The...