This paper explores the institutional determinants of economic growth in Latin America by taking advantage of recent empirical research that employs subjective and objective measures to test for a possible "Northian" explanation that links institutional quality and economic growth. I provide a...

Recent episodes of strong growth in banks' credit to the private sector have been accompanied by large appreciations of the real exchange rates. I conjecture that such appreciations have been associated with cross-country interest rate differentials, and integrated financial markets generated...

Policymakers across countries have been seeking to strengthen the institutional framework to control fiscal costs and feedback effects to the real economy generated by bank failures. On a cross-section of countries, we find evidence that suggests that bank supervisors’ intervention in bank...

We study the link between the probability of default implied by Credit Default Swaps (CDS) spreads and the final prices of the defaulted bonds as established at the CDS settlement auctions. We observe that the post-default recovery rates at the observed spreads imply markets were often...

Inflation-indexed bonds represent a sizeable source of financing for corporations in emerging market countries, while they provide significant portfolio benefits to investors. In particular, inflation-indexed bonds can reduce borrowing costs and facilitate a maturity extension for a corporate...

"In contrast with a growing literature on the drivers of aggregate volatility in developing countries, its consequences in terms of individual incomes have received less attention. This paper looks at the impact of cyclical output fluctuations and extreme output events (crises) on unemployment,...