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Since its appearance in 2020, Brazil and Mexico have been among the most affected countries in the world by covid-19. Their respective presidents, Jair Bolsonaro and Andrés Manuel López Obrador (known as AMLO), have played a leading role in specific policies during the pandemic. Their choices were both singular and counter- intuitive. On the health front, AMLO initially underplayed the seriousness of the situation, and the Brazilian president, Bolsonaro, defended a frankly negationist attitude, with a dramatic balance sheet, without his popularity being seriously affected. On the economic front, they have chosen policies that contradict not only each other but also their own supposed ideological stances. Bolsonaro, who is ranked on the far right, has implemented an emergency transfer program on a scale comparable to those of developed countries and the most massive the country has ever seen. Conversely, AMLO, considered a progressist, provided just a minimum policy package, maintaining his previous electoral program. By adopting a comparative approach and mobilizing a unique and diversified set of data, the objective of this paper is to explore these apparent contradictions. After having established the precise diagnosis of the policies implemented to deal with the crisis and the economic and health situation in the two countries during the 2020-2022 period, we propose an original interpretation grid of the central role played by the two presidents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes the impact of the feedback relationship that exists between inflation, its uncertainty, and the economic growth of the two main Latin American economies. A Bivariate Generalized Autoregressive Conditional Heteroscedasticity model is developed, which also allows the identification of asymmetric impacts on the conditional volatility of the product and inflation, the sample period corresponds to January 1985 to June 2019. Additionally, causality tests are developed to identify the fulfillment of the main hypotheses raised. Among the main findings is the verification of the Friedman-Ball hypothesis for both countries in most of the lags. Regarding the second hypothesis, it is found that the central bank of Mexico has presented a stabilizing behavior, while in the Brazilian case an opportunistic behavior has been identified. In the third hypothesis, no causal relationship of inflationary uncertainty towards economic growth is identified, in the case of Mexico; while, in the case of Brazil, an ambivalent causality has been identified, regarding the number of lags. Finally, in the fourth hypothesis we find results that corroborate, mainly for both economies, a positive effect from inflation on economic growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes debt securitization in underdeveloped countries, using the case of Argentina, Mexico, and Brazil. We argue that the three countries have had a significant increase in the issuance of debt securities. However, the nature of the securities issued is different in each nation. In the case of Argentina, the increase in international debt securities in circulation has to do with the issuance of government securities. In Mexico, the increase is more related to the new financing needs of Mexican non-financial corporations. While in Brazil, the increase in the issuance of debt securities is due to a combination of both factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The objective of this paper is to examine the relationship between fiscal and monetary policy coordination and fiscal multipliers in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and Mexico. To do so, we first look at the theoretical framework of the New Consensus Macroeconomics (NCM), and then analyze the trends in the four countries for variables including consumption, investment, government spending, and interest rates. Finally, we present an estimate of the spending and monetary multipliers with proxy variables. The contribution of this paper consists of one, showing the inexistence of the crowding out effect, and two, quantifying the multipliers for the aforementioned countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes the relationship between the financial instability generated by shortterm capital flows in the absence of control mechanisms and the restrictions facing the implementation of counter-cyclical fiscal policies in the inflation-targeting regime, using as a springboard the recent financial crises in, specifically, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, and Peru, showing how an increase in the issuance of public bonds to, via interventions in the exchange rate market, sterilize the effects of short-term capital flows on the monetary base is a source of endogenous instability, because this mechanism entails risks for the exchange rate and interest rate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]