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Working Paper
Is foreign-currency indexed debt a commitment technology? Some evidence from Brazil and Mexico
We examine the effects of foreign currency-indexed debt upon inflationary expectations in Brazil and Mexico. Conjecturing that markets will view increasing overhangs of foreign currency-indexed debt as a commitment technology that fiscally punishes devaluation, we test whether increasing such overhangs will attenuate the effect of monetary growth upon inflationary expectations. We find some econometric confirmation of these conjectures in both the Brazilian and Mexican cases. Finding that the results are consistent with the notion that increasing the share of dollar indexed debt may also ...
Working Paper
Privatization, competition, and supercompetition in the Mexican commercial banking system
Economic Research Working Paper 9904
Working Paper
Argentina's recovery and "excess" capital shallowing of the 1990s
The paper examines Argentinas economic expansion in the 1990s through the lens of a parsimonious neoclassical growth model. The main finding is that investment remained considerably weaker than what the model would have predicted. The resulting excessive capital shallowing could be identified as a weakness of the rapid economic growth of the 1990s that may have played a role in Argentinas ultimate inability to escape the crisis that started to unfold towards the end of that decade. ; Economic Research Working Paper 0204
Working Paper
Banking and finance in Argentina in the period 1900-35
From 1900 to 1935, Argentina evolved from an economy highly dependent on external, primarily British, finance to one more nearly self-sufficient. We examine the failure of domestic finance to adequately fill the void left by the decline of London and the breakdown of the world financial system in the interwar period, when neither the Buenos Aires Bolsa nor the private domestic banks developed rapidly enough to fully replace British investors as efficient channels for financing private investment. One consequence is that Argentine investable funds were increasingly concentrated in a single ...
Working Paper
Finance matters
We present a model in which the importance of financial intermediation for development can be measured. We generate financial differences by varying the degree to which contracts can be enforced. Economies where enforcement is poor employ less capital and less efficient technologies. Yet, accounting for all the observed dispersion output requires a higher capital share or a lower elasticity of substitution between capital and labor than usually assumed. We find that the effects of changes in those technological parameters on output are markedly larger when financial frictions are present. ...
Working Paper
When does financial liberalization make banks risky? : an empirical examination of Argentina, Canada and Mexico
In the literature on systemic banking crises, two common themes are: (1) lack of market discipline encourages risky lending and (2) financial liberalization or privatization lead to risky lending. However, there is evidence to suggest that neither financial liberalization nor weak market discipline always precedes risky lending. We test for depositor discipline and, separately for post-liberalization or post-privatization risky lending in Argentina, Canada, and Mexico. In the countries without market discipline, lending risk increases significantly in the wake of liberalization. Where ...
Working Paper
Argentina's lost decade
Argentina suffered a depression in the 1980s that was as severe as the Great Depression experienced in the United States and Germany in the interwar period. Our paper examines this depression from the perspective of growth theory, taking total factor productivity as exogenous. The predictions of the growth model conform rather well with the observations during the lost decade years. ; Economic Research Working Paper 0107
Working Paper
Is tighter fiscal policy expansionary under fiscal dominance? Hypercrowding out in Latin America
We test for hypercrowding out as a signal of market concerns over fiscal dominance in five Latin American countries. Hypercrowding out occurs when fiscally dominated governments domestic credit demands are perceived as so intrusive to a nations financial system that a move towards fiscal surplus lowers interest rates and increases growth. We sample five Latin American countries to test for these relationships. Judged by the results of vector error correction models, three nations test clearly positive, suggesting market concern despite their recent efforts towards fiscal balance.
Working Paper
Argentina's lost decade and subsequent recovery: hits and misses of the neoclassical growth model
We examine the economic depression that Argentina suffered in the 1980s, as well as the subsequent recovery, from the perspective of growth theory, taking total factor productivity as exogenous. The predictions of the neoclassical growth model conform rather well with the evidence for the "lost decade" depression and at the same time point to a puzzle: Investment did not recover in the subsequent decade of the 1990s nearly as fast as it should have according to that same model.
Working Paper
Limited enforcement and the organization of production
This paper describes a dynamic, general equilibrium model designed to assess whether contractual imperfections in the form of limited enforcement can account for international differences in the organization of production. In the model, limited enforcement constrains some agents to operate establishments below their optimal scale. As a result, economies where contracts are enforced more efficiently tend to be richer and emphasize large scale production. Calibrated simulations of the model reveal that these effects can be large and account for a sizeable part of the observed differences in ...