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This paper explores the empirical determinants of external crises on a world panel dataset of 62 countries over the fifty-year period 1970-2019 and estimates their risk trade-offs with the aim of informing macrofinancial prudential policies. The determinants include countries external balance sheets, macroeconomic imbalances, and structural and global factors. It finds that information on the composition of gross positions in countries external financial portfolios is required to gauge the risk of external crisis: debt liabilities are the riskiest component, FDI liabilities are half as risky, and FDI assets are the most protective. Macroeconomic imbalances increase risk but are usually not the key drivers of crises. Adverse global shocks significantly leverage domestic risks. International reserves are powerful risk mitigants that provide high insurance value. The evidence shows that advanced economies are structurally more resilient to withstand exposure to weak external portfolios, macroeconomic imbalances, and global shocks. For the average country the risk of external crisis is on a declining trend mainly driven by improvements in the composition of external portfolio assets magnified by increasing financial integration as well as rising international reserves.

The conventional paradigm about development banks is that these institutions exist to target well-identified market failures. However, market failures are not directly observable and can only be ascertained with a suitable learning process. Hence, the question is how do the policymakers know what activities should be promoted; how do they learn about the obstacles to the creation of new activities? Rather than assuming that the government has arrived at the right list of market failures and uses development banks to close some well-identified market gaps, we suggest that development banks can be in charge of identifying these market failures through their loan-screening and lending activities to guide their operations and provide critical inputs for the design of productive development policies. In fact, they can also identify government failures that stand in the way of development and call for needed public inputs. This intelligence role of development banks is similar to the role that modern theories of financial intermediation assign to banks as institutions with a comparative advantage in producing and processing information. However, while private banks focus on information on private returns, development banks would potentially produce and organize information about social returns.

Este trabajo produce información actualizada y analiza el mercado financiero agropecuario de Uruguay con el objetivo de contribuir a mejorar las políticas e instituciones responsables de su desarrollo eficiente. Se repasan las principales características del entorno macrofinanciero que son relevantes para el desempeño del sector financiero vinculado al agro. Se caracteriza el perfil de créditos al sector agropecuario y su evolución, se detallan las instituciones financieras relevantes. Se repasan otros arreglos institucionales importantes como los fideicomisos financieros, los fondos de financiamiento y los fondos de garantía. Luego, se describen los productos financieros como el crédito tradicional, principal instrumento de financiamiento del sector, así como los fondos de garantía, contratos de leasing, préstamos de cadena de valor, e instrumentos para captación de ahorro basados en fideicomisos financieros. Luego, se analizan las principales políticas públicas tendientes a desarrollar al sector financiero agropecuario, como las leyes de Promoción de Inversiones, de Inclusión Financiera, de fideicomisos financieros, y de fondos de garantía, así como aquellas sectoriales impulsadas y administradas principalmente desde el Ministerio de Ganadería, Agricultura y Pesca. Finalmente, se concluye con una serie de reflexiones para el desarrollo del financiamiento del sector agropecuario que pueden ser útiles para el debate de políticas. [resumen de autor]

IFPRI e IICA, con el apoyo del Secretariado de la Red para la InversiA³n y la FinanciaciA³n de la Agricultura en PequeA±a Escala (SAFIN en inglA©s) con sede en FIDA, organizaron el 6 y 7 de mayo de 2019 en la sede del IICA en San JosA©, Costa Rica, un foro para analizar la experiencia en materia de financiamiento e inclusiA³n financiera para el desarrollo agropecuario, rural y de sistemas alimentarios en AmA©rica Latina y el Caribe (ALC). El objetivo ha sido construir una agenda de temas a analizar para derivar propuestas apropiadas de polA­tica econA³mica en esas Aireas. Previamente se distribuyA³ tambiA©n un documento base para la discusiA³n (DA­az-Bonilla y FernAindez-Arias, 2019). Se invitA³ a especialistas de diferentes paA­ses, representando a organismos pAoblicos, al sector privado, incluyendo grupos de productores agropecuarios, sociedad civil, organismos internacionales y organizaciones financieras de desarrollo no gubernamentales. El evento se iniciA³ con una presentaciA³n del Director General del IICA sobre la situaciA³n general del sector agropecuario en la regiA³n. Las sesiones temAiticas se organizaron con la siguiente estructura: a) una presentaciA³n general para dar un marco a la discusiA³n (usando especialmente el documento base mencionado, DA­az-Bonilla y FernAindez-Arias, 2019); b) la propuesta de diferentes preguntas indicativas para el anAilisis; y 3) las intervenciones de los participantes. A continuaciA³n, se resumen diferentes aspectos del rico debate y anAilisis durante el foro, siguiendo bAisicamente la estructura de temas propuestos en la agenda.

Productive development policies (PDPs) are notoriously hard. They involve a daunting level of technical detail, require public-private collaboration, are in constant danger of capture, and demand time consistency hard to achieve in a politically volatile region. Nevertheless, the potential of PDPs to revitalize the region’s economic performance and spur productivity growth cannot be ignored. This book takes an in-depth look at 17 cases involving productive development agencies from Argentina, Brazil, Costa Rica and Uruguay, identifying key features of institutional design and agency-level practices that make success more likely in this difficult policy arena. Careful study of these experiences might help successful productive development policies gain currency across the region. The cases in this book should not be seen as the exceptions that prove the rule of lackluster PDP performance, but rather as examples that demonstrate the rule can be broken.

Several European countries face challenges reminiscent of those faced by the emerging economies of Latin America. The economic booms in some peripheral Euro-zone countries financed by large capital inflows; the credit and asset price booms and then the busts including Sudden Stops in capital flows; the strong interaction between sovereign debt and domestic banking systems; the role of foreign banks and contagion; and all in the context of a fixed exchange rate, are familiar plotlines for Latin American audiences. For those Euro-zone countries that built up large Euro-denominated external liabilities, Latin America's experience is particularly relevant and worrisome. Still, Europe may be in a better position to navigate a path out of the crisis given cooperative mechanisms that were absent in Latin America, particularly the availability of massive liquidity support. Nonetheless, while such support buys time, it does not guarantee success. This paper argues that reflecting on Latin America's experience provides useful lessons for Europe to improve the chances for a successful resolution.

Why should people--and economies--save? The typical answer usually focuses on the need to protect against future shocks, to smooth consumption during hard times, in short, to save for the proverbial rainy day. This book approaches the question from a slightly different angle. While saving to survive the bad times is important, saving to thrive in the good times is what really counts. People must save so they can invest in their own and their children's health and education, live productive fulfilling lives, and end their days in comfort and peace. Firms must save so they can grow productive enterprises that employ more workers in better jobs to produce quality goods for domestic and international markets. Governments must save to build bridges, highways, and airports that support a productive economy, to provide quality services such as education, health, water, and sanitation to their citizens, and to assure their senior citizens a dignified, worry-free retirement. In short, countries must save for a sunny day -a time when everyone can bask in the benefits of growth, prosperity, and well-being.

This paper shows, using probit analysis, that low national savings increase the risk of macroeconomic crisis. Foreign savings are a poor substitute of national savings not only for domestic investment (Feldstein-Horioka result), but also for stability. It is found that deeper financial integration does not cure low investment and can improve the situation only to the extent that the risks of the foreign saving portfolio can be kept under control. Overall, a fundamental conclusion is that strong national savings are key for robust growth. Extending the probit analysis, the paper shows that the composition of foreign assets and liabilities matters substantially for portfolio risk and derives an index to assess the associated country risk.

This paper combines development accounting exercises with economic theory to assess the importance of total factor productivity and the accumulation of factors of production as engines of growth in Latin America. Using the new, drastically revised Penn World Table (PWT) and Barro-Lee datasets, the paper shows that lower and non-convergent income relative to successful development benchmarks are explained by subpar productivity gains rather than slower factor accumulation. The empirical analysis of the interplay between productivity and accumulation in the process of development suggests that one explanation for this pattern is that investment in Latin America is not as productivity-enhancing as in less distorted economies.

This paper discusses the organizational structure and technical, operational and political capabilities required for successful productive development policies (PDPs). It also discusses how countries can match their PDPs to existing capabilities, as well as expand their capabilities in the long run. The specific difficulties associated with PDPs are also discussed.