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This paper first analyzes the performance of Latin America during the long economic cycle that took place between 1998 and 2014, which combined the regional effects of the Asian crisis with a growth phase driven by a supercycle of commodity prices. However, the expansionary phase was followed by a five-year period of economic stagnation, during which previous achievements were weakened, even before the covid-19 crisis erupted, with its negative consequences. This confirms the persistence of the region's economic vulnerability to external shocks, as well as the difficulties in maintaining sustained growth rates associated with processes of structural change, which make it possible to reduce the gap in the development levels vis-à-vis the leading countries and face the challenges of environmental sustainability. It is also pointed out that, despite the important achievements in terms of social development during the recent growth cycle, the high structural inequalities that characterize the region were not broken. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Latin America has been dominated by growth expansions that, more often than not, have ended in crises and protracted periods of stagnation. This has led to poor growth performance during most of the past century. This paper reviews Latin American growth experiences and discusses some particular areas that help to explain why sustainable growth has been so elusive in the region. In particular, it discusses the role of openness and intraregional trade, the role of institutions, macroeconomic stability and inequality, all factors that are central to resume and maintain growth. The paper also discusses more general issues related to growth, such as the importance of protecting property rights and having an adequate structure of rewards to effort, which includes equal opportunities. Finally, a brief overview on current macroeconomic developments is presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a small open economy model to study the role of real interest rate shocks in Mexico. The interest rate is divided in two terms: an international rate and a country risk premia. Simulations show that the model with endogenous risk premia is able to explain several stylized facts at business cycle frequencies. Counterfactual analysis suggests that output volatility could be lowered by approximately 30 percent if interest rate shocks are eliminated, especially due to its country risk premia component. In the absence of such shocks, cyclical output and consumption would have fallen by 2 and 4.5 percent during the 1994-1995 recession, in sharp contrast with the falls of 12 and 16 percent observed in the data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we consider an extension of Vasicek's (1991) model for new consumer fixed-payment credits in the Chilean banking system. Under the assumption that the economy experienced a complete business cycle during 2003-09, we are able to compute the so-called Long-Run Probability of Default (LRPD) which is 14.4% if we consider the number of defaulted credits or 12.9% if we weight default frequencies by loan size. In the model we allow a time-variant threshold which is a function of both macroeconomic factors and average-characteristics of incoming debtors. Also, counterfactual exercises indicate that credit standards for loan applications were relaxed during 2006-07, implying an increment on defaults. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a procedure for estimating potential output and the total factor productivity (TFP), to be applied to Peruvian economy. On the basis of potential output series the economic cycle is then calculated to demonstrate that the output gap includes the TFP gap and the unemployment gap (natural rate and actual rate on unemployment). Moreover, it contrasts the sources of growth and productivity behavior during the import substitution era and the period of neoliberal policies. On the other hand, it shows that productivity changes are associated to the evolution of capital labor ratio and efficiency of investment. The empirical evidence indicates that, in the last decades, there weren't modernization processes with significant impacts on the Peruvian economy as a whole. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we define a particular dynamic solution (Shenoy, 1980) for abstract games related to games with transferable utilities (TU-games). We show that this solution must contain some cycles of pre-imputations, maximal U-cycles (pro- vided this cycles exist). The existence of such cycles is strongly connected to the non-balancedness of the TU-game under study. Besides, the dynamic solution coincides with the core of the game in the case of balanced lu-games. Thus, it pro- vides an unifying solution concept for games with transferable utilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies Mexican poverty levels by state during the 1992-2002 period, in order to evaluate the effect that the business cycle and governmental policies have had on poverty levels. We find that behind the business cycle and the urban poverty are inversely related and that institutional transfers reduce poverty both in urban and rural areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]