1. Picking Up the Pieces: Comparing the Social Impact of Finacial Crisis in Mexico and Argentina
- Author:
- Manuel Pastor and Carol Wise
- Publication Date:
- 10-2003
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Center for International Studies, University of Southern California
- Abstract:
- After a committed process of macroeconomic stabilization that began during the mid-1980s in most of Latin America, many observers began to speak of the need for a “second generation” of reforms that could more firmly establish the bases for economic growth and correct for longstanding distributional inequities. By the mid-1990s serious reformers like Argentina and Mexico seemed to be on the cusp of tackling this distributional backlog by launching so-called second phase market reforms meant to correct for earlier shortcomings in the social realm (Naím 1995; Pastor and Wise 1999). However, in both cases, financial crises erupted: Mexico's crash of December 1994, which saw a forty percent devaluation of the peso and a massive outflow of portfolio capital; and, more recently, Argentina's 2002 meltdown, which while simmering since the Brazilian devaluation of 1999, finally caused the country's commitment to a fixed exchange rate to be abandoned.
- Topic:
- Economics and Government
- Political Geography:
- Brazil, Argentina, South America, Latin America, North America, and Mexico