1. Power and Crisis: Explaining Varieties of Commercial Banking Systems in Argentina, Brazil and Mexico
- Author:
- Sebastian Etchemendy and Puente Ignacio
- Publication Date:
- 01-2017
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Institution:
- German Institute of Global and Area Studies
- Abstract:
- In the early 1980s Argentina, Brazil, and Mexico had commer- cial banking sectors that were dominated by local banks. The largest countries in Latin America were subjected to common international economic pressures during both the neoliberal 1980s and 1990s – includ- ing the expansion of capital markets in the periphery and integration into the regional trade agreements NAFTA and Mercosur – and the post- 1998 financial turmoil. By 2015, however, the three countries had con- solidated alternative commercial banking systems: domestic private group dominated (Brazil), mixed (i.e., ownership more evenly divided among public, private domestic, and foreign banks (Argentina), and foreign bank dominated (Mexico). The article traces these alternative outcomes to the power of prereform private financial groups, the viru- lence of “twin crises” in the transition from fixed to floating exchange rates, and the (contingent) role played by government ideology.
- Topic:
- Regional Cooperation, Finance, Trade, and Banking
- Political Geography:
- Brazil, Argentina, South America, Latin America, North America, and Mexico