Search

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.

Deeper financial integration is expected to enable low-saving countries to increase domestic investment but also to increase crisis risks by facilitating the accumulation of risky foreign liabilities. This paper explores the connections between financial integration, investment and crisis risk to assess this tradeoff. It confirms expectations but also finds that the accumulation of safe foreign assets that financial integration brings is an important risk offset that in many cases even eliminates the risk factor from the tradeoff altogether. Furthermore, it shows that the risk features of assets and liabilities depend on their type. Ultimately, whether international financial integration is in fact a reliable remedy for individual countries critically depends on the portfolio composition of their foreign assets and liabilities.

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 to 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 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 book explores how households, firms, and governments can address the savings problem in Latin America and the Caribbean in pursuit of that sunny day.

Why should people--and economies--save? The typical answer usually focuses on the need to protect against future shocks, to smooth consumptionduring 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.

It takes two to tango. Strong public-private collaboration is key for discovering and implementing effective productive development policies to bring out the best in existing economic activities and to foster economic transformation. The 25 Latin American cases analyzed in this volume show how and why many public and private partners are dancing smoothly while others stumble or follow different drummers. This book is a resource for designing institutions to make public-private interaction a win-win strategy.

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.

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.

Most countries in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) have been growing slowly for a long time and see themselves still poor relative to the rest of the world, both advanced countries and peer countries in other regions. Low productivity and insufficient productivity growth, as opposed to impediments to factor accumulation, is the key to understanding LAC’s low income relative to developed economies and its stagnation relative to other developing countries that are catching up. Daude and Fernández-Arias (2010) calculate measures of total factor productivity (TFP) for a cross section of countries and show that TFP is the principal driver of the slow development of LAC. This database provides this measure of TFP updated until 2010 along with the inputs used to calculate it and other measures of productivity.

This synopsis reviews the analysis of market failures that lies behind the conceptual framework, a few highlights of its application in key areas such as innovation, and the institutional requirements for successful policy interventions. Together, this synopsis and the table of contents provide just a taste of the rich information and valuable policy implications that distinguish this year's edition of the DIA.

Fiscal policy in Latin America has been historically imprudent and continues to be viewed with skepticism. At the same time, most countries have remained out of trouble for several years and were able to successfully conduct proactive countercyclical fiscal policy to fight the Great Recession, a historical first. This paper examines the last decade to assess progress, highlight weaknesses, and chart the way forward. The paper looks at structural fiscal balances, filtering out the business cycle and commodity price fluctuations to assess prudent fiscal policy concerning cyclical management and long-run sustainability. Up to the Great Recession countries deserved good grades, in the B range, on both counts. Afterwards, satisfactory cyclical management continued but, critically, extraordinary circumstances led to a regime change in the level of the underlying structural balance. Successful countercyclical fiscal policy was prudently undertaken in the crisis but not decisively unwound in its aftermath, leaving behind an unsatisfactory fiscal stance. With this "Incomplete" grades slipped to the C range and may end up as an F unless there is normalization to pre-crisis levels to regain sustainability. On a constructive note, the paper distills lessons from experience and charts the path of fiscal reform to reach an A grade.

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.

This report details the divergent paths that the world economy may take and their potential effects on Latin America and the Caribbean. Scenarios are constructed employing a modeling exercise that captures the trade, financial and other linkages between the region and the rest of the world. While vulnerabilities remain and external shocks have been and remain critical, the region enjoys many strengths and has developed a growing arsenal of policy tools. What is the balance of vulnerabilities versus strengths? How can countries address the existing vulnerabilities? How can they perfect their policy tools and minimize the effect of external crises?

Europe faces challenges reminiscent of Latin American financial crises. The failure of recent liquidity support to normalize the situation in Europe suggests the need to refocus the policy debate on fundamentals: structural reform for growth and, where needed, restructuring to resolve banking crises and the debt overhang. Latin America's experience yields relevant policy lessons for Europe on those fronts except concerning the use of sharp real devaluations to spearhead recovery: euro-zone countries following suit by reintroducing devalued national currencies would invite catastrophe. Despite this constraint, Europe stands a better chance of navigating the path out of the crisis because it has cooperative mechanisms unavailable in Latin America. European cooperation can provide support for orderly crisis resolution as well as growth and competitiveness within the currency union fold, to the benefit of all members. However, the path is uncharted, and successful regional cooperation will require innovation and political will.

In the first eight decades of the 20th century, Brazil ranked among the countries with highest growth rates in the world. During the period 1930-80, in particular, it managed to reduce its per capita income gap vis-à-vis industrialized economies and seemed poised to escape underdevelopment early in this century. However, this dream never materialized; Brazil's growth performance deteriorated sharply over the following quarter century, never fully recovering from the second oil shock and the foreign debt crisis. In this period Brazil experienced much lower and more volatile growth, with its long-term annual growth rate (ten-year moving average) fluctuating in the 2% to 3% range, well below the 6% to 10% range that prevailed in 1950-80. Brazil reacted by embarking on reforms, from trade liberalization to changes in fiscal and social policies. Policies improved, especially after price stabilization, in 1994, and, if anything, have been better than through most the high growth period, but apparently to no avail. Something happened in this later period that prevented Brazil from regaining the rapid growth that it had exhibited previously. What might it have been?

An analysis of the performance of the global financial safety net during the 2008-2009 crisis, and an evaluation of its new components, indicates that, from an emerging markets perspective, the net remains full of holes despite recent stitches. This paper therefore proposes an effective and workable international lender of last resort (ILLR) for systemic liquidity crises based on: i) an automatic trigger to access the facility; ii) unilateral country pre-qualification to the facility during Article IV consultations; and iii) liquidity funded by the world's "issuers of last resort". These principles would support a reliable and broad-based ILLR without the carrying costs associated with inefficient reserve hoarding, which would actually work as an effective preventive facility with minimal room for moral hazard.

This paper combines development and growth accounting exercises with economic theory to estimate the relative importance of total factor productivity and the accumulation of factors of production in the economic development performance of Latin America. The regions development performance is assessed by contrast with various alternative benchmarks, both advanced countries and peer countries in other regions. The paper finds that total factor productivity is the predominant factor: low productivity and slow productivity growth, as opposed to impediments to factor accumulation, are the key to understanding Latin Americas low income relative to developed economies and its stagnation relative to other developing countries. While policies easing factor accumulation would help somewhat in improving productivity, for the most part, closing the productivity gap requires productivity-specific policies.

There is an increasing need for a system of international lending of last resort (ILLR) to provide a safety net in the event of financial crises in vulnerable countries as financial globalization deepens and spreads. Multilateral progress to address liquidity and solvency crises has been patchy and inconsistent, with no clear distinction between the two; in particular, there is still no framework to address sovereign debt restructuring. This paper proposes an integrated system of specialized ILLR facilities to address problems of liquidity, adjustment, and debt restructuring in a focused but robust way as crises evolve and morph, structured in tiers to cater to countries capacity to prequalify for automatic support. It further proposes feasible legal reform to subject creditors to standstills and seniority dilution as in domestic bankruptcy in order to empower ILLR to facilitate orderly workouts in debt restructuring. Multilateral development banks would play important supporting roles.

This report focuses on the region's macroeconomic performance in the context of an unusually sharp and rapid deterioration in external conditions. To assess policy options, the report develops a framework to identify the critical trade-offs faced by countries in the region, and evaluates these trade-offs under alternative, plausible, global economic scenarios. It identifies some of the macroeconomic challenges and risks that policymakers face on the road ahead. No individual country suggestions are made. Instead, the report indicates some general policy principles that can hopefully be of use to policymakers, including the international financial institutions engaged in the region. This report was prepared for the Annual Meeting of the Board of Governors of the IDB held in Medellín, Colombia, in March, 2009.

This paper analyzes the long-run relationship between output collapsesdefined defined as GDP falling substantially below trendand total factor productivity (TFP), using a panel of 71 developed and developing countries during the period 1960-2003 to identify episodes of output collapse and estimate counterfactual post-collapse TFP trends. Collapses are concentrated in developing countries, especially African and Latin American, and were particularly widespread in the 1980s in Latin America. Overall, output collapses are systematically associated with long-lasting declines in TFP. The paper explores the conditions under which collapses are least or most damaging, as well as the type of shocks that make collapses more likely or severe, and additionally quantifies the welfare cost associated with output collapses.

This paper examines the countercyclical policy options available to Latin American countries in the face of the current global economic crisis, concluding that most of the major countries in the region appear to possess the fiscal space (as measured by credible fiscal sustainability and debt headroom) to run prudent countercyclical fiscal deficits. Those countries should undertake a constrained fiscal expansion focused on productive public spending and financed by rainy day fundslarge stocks of foreign exchange reserves that they have accumulated during recent yearsrather than by market borrowing. The recent surge in multilateral financial activity to alleviate market illiquidity, whether intended for reserve or budget support, strengthens the case for this policy prescription: with multilateral support, the appropriate policy response is more expansionary, and its financing is less reliant on market borrowing.

The paper reviews the case for a strong multilateral response to the global crisis in emerging markets (EMs). It discusses modalities and feasibility of intervention and its associated risks, depending on country circumstances of fiscal space and liquidity needs. The specific role of Multilateral Development Banks (MDBs) in ensuring the development effectiveness of the fiscal response is also discussed. The paper concludes by highlighting the international financial architecture issues raised by the global crisis that cannot be addressed immediately but will need to be dealt with once the current crisis has been tamed.

Why are growth rates in Latin America so disappointing? This book reviews the results of an ambitious research project to determine the binding constraints to growth, that is, the barrier whose removal would yield the greatest benefit in terms of growth. Included are case studies from seven countries in the region: Argentina, Brazil, Ecuador, Guatemala, Peru, Nicaragua, Trinidad and Tobago.

Regional integration among asymmetric countries is a hot and burning policy topic worldwide. Deepening Integration in MERCOSUR analyzes the most important issues of economic integration and policy coordination that countries face as they advance towards deeper integration and are urged to address development disparities among partner countries.

Financial dollarization is a key factor behind systemic financial fragility in Latin America. The experience shows that dedollarization can be achieved but can just as easily be missed, and worse: blunt dedollarization measures repressing dollarization may easily fail to solve fragility and, instead, foster risky short-term debt or provoke massive financial disintermediation and crisis. This paper analyzes the sources of liability dollarization in a portfolio framework and identifies the failures leading to excessive dollarization meriting policy intervention as well as the reasons why dedollarization policy often goes awry. It then derives an analytically sound multipronged domestic dedollarization program that takes into account the risks of misdiagnosis and the experience, both successful and failed. This program centers around the development of good local currency substitutes for dollar debt, such as CPI-indexed debt, rather than the repression of dollar debt.

The country studies and their background papers included in this book were prepared for the Latin America and the Caribbean section of the "Global Research Project: Explaining Growth" of the Global Development Network (GDN), a research effort conducted in association with the Latin American and Caribbean Economic Association (LACEA). Latin American countries are falling behind. The growth record of Latin America in the recent past has been poor. For decades the average income per capita in Latin America has fallen relative to those of other countries, raising concerns about the capacity of the region to emulate more successful developing countries and lift its living standards closer to those of the developed world. What is failing? Two overview chapters, six country studies and four background thematic studies have been assembled in this book to present a comprehensive answer to this question.

In order to analyze how satisfactory the growth process in Latin America has been over the past 40 years it is important to make relevant comparisons with other experiences. To tackle this issue, the authors focus on the per capita economic growth rate and its contributing factors, comparing the experience of the typical country in Latin America (LAC) with that of benchmark countries, namely a typical country of the rest of the world (ROW) and of its subsets of developed countries (DEV) and East Asian countries (EASIA). They provide some econometric evidence suggesting that the worse institutional quality of Latin America relative to rest of the world, and to a lesser extent, the lower degree of openness and the higher degree of macroeconomic instability, were important factors behind these differences in productivity growth. The rest of the paper includes a description of economic performance of Latin America during the last four decades and a comparison it with the experience of the benchmark countries, accounting exercises in order to examine the contributions of various factors to the differences in performance observed, an econometric model to explore the role of policy and institutional variables as drivers of these contributions, and a conclusion.

This paper examines the growth experiences of Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay (Southern Cone countries). The analysis sheds light on the strengths and weaknesses of long-run growth of these countries by identifying similarities and differences with other countries and assesses their economic performance on that comparative basis. In order to analyze how satisfactory the development process in the Southern Cone countries has been over the past 40 years it is important to make comparisons with relevant countries. To tackle this issue, we focus on the per-capita economic growth rate and its contributing factors, comparing the experience in Southern Cone countries with that of benchmark countries, namely a typical country of the rest of Latin America (LAC), of the rest of the world outside Latin America (ROW) and of its subset of developed countries (DEV).

This paper discusses the economic performance of Latin America in the last decade, paying special attention to growth and the financial sector. In particular, it shows that external factors, such as like U.S. interest rates and the business cycle, play a key role in capital inflows, investment, and growth. As a result, economic growth in the region tends to be fragile and exhibits a high degree of co-movement, i.e., high cross-country output correlation. This last feature exacerbates fragility, because there is little room for mutual insurance within Latin America in case a country suffers a bad shock, and finance during downturns has to come primarily from outside the region.

This paper provides an overview and assessment of reform initiatives, both those currently on the table and those that are not but should be. The intent is to clarify the logic behind these proposals and assess them from a Latin American perspective. For each core initiative examined in this paper, whether currently on the table or proposed for consideration, the authors first identify which of the main distortions, identified in the companion paper, it addresses. The overall conclusion is that the current approach to reforming the international financial architecture is not appropriate for the task and a paradigm shift is required. This paper was presented at the Tenth International Forum on Latin American Perspectives in Paris, November 25-26, 1999.

Recent financial crises and contagion call into question the wisdom of capital account liberalization. There is consensus that something is terribly wrong in the way international financial markets work for developing countries and that fixing is urgent. But what is wrong? Most views in developed countries identify the problems with too much capital flows, attracted by moral hazard. However, our analysis shows that the role of this distortion is being grossly exaggerated and that, in contrast, the main distortions in international financial markets are associated with capital flows being too little, restricted by sovereign risk, and too volatile because of market failures.

This paper studies the proposition that capital inflows tend to take the form of FDI -i.e., the share of FDI in total liabilities tends to be higher- in countries that are safer, more promising and with better institutions and policies. It finds that this view is patently wrong since it stands the historical record on its head. It then uses alternative theories to make sense of the facts. It begins by studying the determinants of the size and composition of the flows of private capital across countries. It finds that while capital flows tend to go to countries that are safer and have better institutions and financial markets, the share of FDI in total flows is not an indication of good health. On the contrary, countries that are riskier, less financially developed and have weaker institutions tend to attract less capital but more of it in the form of FDI. Hence, interpreting the rising share of FDI as a sign of good health is unwarranted. This is even more so, given that FDI's recent rise has taken place while total private capital inflows have fallen.

It has been common to attribute financial crises to short-term capital inflows, while foreign direct investment (FDI) is seen as a safer form of finance. The relationship between crises and the composition of capital flows is particularly relevant at present because the flow of capital to Latin America is becoming increasingly dominated by FDI. This paper asks whether the composition of capital inflows and of the stock of foreign liabilities is relevant for financial crises, be it their frequency, depth, or length. It explores the possible role of FDI as a benign form of external liability relative to other classes of liabilities, reviewing both analytical and empirical arguments.

This paper was prepared for the Seminar The New Wave of Capital Inflows: Sea Change or Tide? Annual Meetings of the Board of Governors, Inter-American Development Bank and Inter-American Investment CorporationWill capital inflows boom again in Latin America as countries recover from the 1998-99 recession? And will they bust again shortly thereafter, repeating the cycle of the past? Is there something fundamentally different about the new wave of capital inflows to alter this historical pattern, a sea change in the way the region is financially linked to international capital markets? Or is nothing really new under the sun and will the new wave of capital inflows be just another tide, bringing in its wake a capital withdrawal and a financial market drought? This paper addresses these important issues, over which there is much controversy.

This paper considers ongoing and proposed reforms of the international financial system in light of Latin America's recent experience. Most proposals are based on one of three diagnoses: excessive capital flows, insufficient capital flows, and excessively volatile capital flows. While theories of excessive capital flows lack empirical support, these views underlie both current and suggested reforms. A subsequent section evaluates proposals involving official financial support, private sector involvement, and financial standards and regulations. The paper supports measures to reduce contagion and liquidity crises, such as an international bankruptcy court, and attribute Latin American financial difficulties in part to "original sin", countries' inability to borrow long-term in their own currencies.

Financial liberalization and integration have generated disappointing results. They were supposed to set up a win-win situation: capital would flow from capital-abundant, low-return, aging industrial countries to capital-scarce, high-return, young emerging countries. Growth in receiving countries would accelerate and both giver and receiver would be happier, while everyone's diversification opportunities improved. As a bonus, emerging market policymakers would be disciplined by losing access to a captive local financial market.

An undistorted free market economy endowed with perfectly rational and informed agents overborrows, i.e., borrows beyond the efficient level, because of the agents' failure to internalize credit rationing resulting from sovereign risk. It follows that the elimination of the market overborrowing will not cure private overborrowing. This paper explores the possibilities of economic policy as a remedy to the problem.

The debate on the effectiveness of foreign aid has intensified in recent years as aid has come under increasing budgetary pressures in donor countries. Whatever the merits of the opposing arguments, the fundamental issue arises of whether conventionally-used measures of aid such as ODA, which lump together grants and loans, accurately reflect true aid flows. This paper analyzes the methodological shortcomings of conventional aid measures, and proposes a new valuation approach that measures official aid flows as the sum of grants and the grant equivalents of official loans. This conceptually superior aid measure can diverge significantly from the conventional aggregates and provide a quite different view on major aid trends.

This paper addresses the adequacy of post-reform growth in Latin America in the 1990s on the basis of international comparison and other relevant standards. It analytically explores and empirically tests a number of hypotheses to explain the perceived dissatisfaction with growth performance.

This paper examines the implications of a North-South trade accord where investments in the Southern partner nation exhibit country risk. Our analysis demonstrates that North-South trade accords can serve as credibility-enhancing mechanisms that induce additional foreign capital inflows into Southern partner nations. The presence of sovereign risk changes the tradeoffs between trade creation and diversion, enhancing the potential for regional trade accords to increase the welfare of accord members.