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201. The Bargain of the Unstable: Trade Negotiations and Financial Crises in Mercosur 1995-2001

Author:
Pablo Heidrich
Publication Date:
02-2005
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for International Studies, University of Southern California
Abstract:
Argentina and Brazil suffered grave financial crises during the 1990s. During that time, they were involved in trade negotiations with each other inside Mercosur. As the financial crises struck one or the other country, their negotiating positions varied from accommodating to aggressive, leading to peaks of confrontation from which Mercosur has not quite recovered yet. Furthermore, those crises provoked a large number of trade disputes as protectionism from both countries grew when the crises increasingly hurt their economies.
Topic:
Economics, International Trade and Finance, and Political Economy
Political Geography:
Brazil, Argentina, and Latin America

202. What Iraq and Argentina Might Learn from Each Other

Author:
Anna Gelpern
Publication Date:
06-2005
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Peterson Institute for International Economics
Abstract:
Financial collapse usually triggers a flurry of market, academic, and policy innovation. The Latin American debt crisis of the 1980s produced the Brady Bonds and led to the rise of today's emerging markets. In the late 1990s, crises in Pakistan, Ecuador, and Ukraine helped teach the markets how to restructure international sovereign bonds. Crises in Mexico, Russia, Brazil, Turkey, and throughout East Asia raised doubts about the international system's ability to manage vast and rapid capital flows, and prompted a big-picture reassessment under the rubric “international financial architecture.” This included most famously the sovereign bankruptcy proposals discussed elsewhere in this volume.
Topic:
Development and Economics
Political Geography:
Pakistan, Russia, Turkey, Ukraine, Middle East, East Asia, Brazil, South America, Latin America, and Mexico

203. Why Is the World Bank Still Lending?

Author:
Adam Lerrick
Publication Date:
11-2005
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research
Abstract:
World Bank money is building schools in China's impoverished western provinces, but the bill for interest charges is being mailed to the United Kingdom, attention Chancellor of Exchequer Gordon Brown. Mexico, Chile, and Brazil will soon be lining up for the same deal. This is but the latest scheme designed to preserve the World Bank's lending role at a time when the need and demand for its services are falling. Major middle-income countries, the cream of the bank's lending portfolio and where more than 80 percent of Latin Americans live, are curbing their borrowing and paying down their balances, setting off alarms at the bank. Net loan flows have shifted from a positive $10 billion in 1999–2001, to a negative $15 billion in 2002–2004.
Topic:
Debt, Development, Economics, and Third World
Political Geography:
China, United Kingdom, Brazil, Latin America, Mexico, and Chile

204. The Poverty Macroeconomic Policy Nexus: Some Short-run Analytics

Author:
George Mavrotas and S. Mansoob Murshed
Publication Date:
12-2005
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
The present paper utilises a short-run theoretical macroeconomic model of a small open economy to look at the impact of macroeconomic policies and financial deepening upon poverty through sectoral changes. This is because an expansion in certain sectors may cause greater poverty reduction. The model involves a non-traded and a traded sector on the formal side of the economy. The former is more capital intensive and the latter more unskilled labour intensive. Increased employment in the traded sector is more pro-poor compared to a similar rise in the non-traded sector as the former draws workers out of poverty in the informal sector. The model in our paper analyses short-run effects of devaluation, a rise in the money supply induced by financial deepening, and taxation to discourage non-traded goods consumption. Financial deepening can induce greater output and reduce poverty. Other results are mixed and taxonomic. We also attempt to differentiate between the stylised experiences of East Asia and Latin America. East Asian economies have relied more heavily on labour-intensive manufactured exports, whereas Latin America has had a relatively greater share of capital intensive and natural resource based exports. In recent decades countries in these two regions have had differing experiences in poverty reduction, with poverty arguably declining more in East Asia.
Topic:
International Relations, Development, Economics, and Poverty
Political Geography:
East Asia and Latin America

205. The Role of Perceived Opportunity in Fertility Choice: Evidence from Latin America

Author:
Louise C. Keely and Margaret MacLeod
Publication Date:
06-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Brookings Institution
Abstract:
We hypothesize that the perceived returns to human capital and to income uncertainty are important determinants of recent cross-sectional variation in Latin American fertility. An empirical study of cross-country individual level data supports the hypothesis. In particular, we find that a higher perceived return to human capital and higher income uncertainty both lead to higher fertility, all else equal. We interpret the evidence to suggest that increasing economic opportunity in Latin America should be accompanied by institutions that provide social protection in order to promote further decreases in fertility toward the replacement rate.
Topic:
Economics, Gender Issues, and Human Welfare
Political Geography:
South America, Latin America, Central America, and Caribbean

206. Development and Foreign Investments: Lessons Learned from Mexican Banking

Author:
Jacob Steinfeld
Publication Date:
07-2004
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Abstract:
FOREIGN DIRECT INVESTMENT (FDI) HAS TRANSFORMED MEXICO'S BANKING SYSTEM during the past decade, making it the second largest in Latin America with $165 billion in commercial assets in 2003. In the past four years, Mexico received $25.3 billion of FDI into its financial sector. This composes nearly 40 percent of total FDI inflows into the country. As a result of FDI flowing into the country's financial sector, the Mexican banking system has the highest ratio of foreign ownership in Latin America.
Topic:
Economics, International Trade and Finance, and Political Economy
Political Geography:
Latin America and Mexico

207. Small Enterprises and Economic Policy

Author:
Simon Johnson and Anders Åslund
Publication Date:
03-2004
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Abstract:
Institutions such as strong property rights and the rule of law are important for both long-run economic performance and short-run volatility. Developing good institutions is generally viewed as a desirable goal, but there is no agreed road map for such changes.
Topic:
Economics
Political Geography:
Israel, Eastern Europe, East Asia, and Latin America

208. The Dominican Republic: Resolving the Banking Crisis and Restoring Growth

Author:
Steve H. Hanke
Publication Date:
07-2004
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Cato Institute
Abstract:
After a decade of rapid economic growth, the Dominican Republic entered a downward spiral in 2003. The economy shrank for the first time since 1990, the inflation rate quadrupled, the Dominican peso collapsed, government debt more than doubled, interest rates soared, and the central bank incurred large losses.
Topic:
Economics, International Trade and Finance, and Political Economy
Political Geography:
Latin America and Caribbean

209. Free Trade and the 2004 Presidential Race

Author:
Claude Barfield
Publication Date:
10-2004
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research
Abstract:
Senator John Kerry and President George W. Bush offer distinct visions of how free trade would operate for the next four years. Senator Kerry has staked out a more unilateralist position with promises to review all trade agreements to strengthen labor and environmental sanctions, while President Bush reinstated trade promotion authority and expanded free trade agreements. The next president will face challenges regarding the WTO Doha Round and markets in Latin America and Asia.
Topic:
International Relations, Foreign Policy, Democratization, and Economics
Political Geography:
Asia and Latin America

210. The carter center financing democracy in guatemala. Final Report: Financing Democracy in Guatemala

Publication Date:
05-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Carter Center
Abstract:
In recent years discussions about the quality of democracy in the Western Hemisphere have focused increasing concern on the financing of political parties and their campaigns. Unlimited spending on campaigns is believed (correctly or not) to have raised the cost of elections to the point where poor candidates stand little chance of competing and the prospect of creating a level playing field for parties and their candidates has become decidedly remote. Undisclosed contributions of licit or illicit origin by wealthy donors have meanwhile intensified the dependence of elected officials on their campaign funders, increasing the likelihood that politicians respond to donor interests and hindering effective representation for the ordinary citizen in the making of public policy. In tandem, these trends are contributing to public cynicism about parties and candidates, and about the possibilities for meaningful citizen participation in politics.
Topic:
Democratization, Economics, and Politics
Political Geography:
Latin America and Central America