Financial Crises in Japan and Latin America

This book looks at the key issues and lessons that policymakers must consider in designing an adequate framework for dealing with financial crises. These include structural problems and their causes, policy actions, the role of market discipline, and preemptive strategies

Urban Heritage Conservation in Latin America and the Caribbean: A Task for All Social Actors

Given the limited scope and sustainability of urban heritage conservation in Latin America and the Caribbean, changes in how it is carried out and funded are needed in order to involve all social actors and use the preserved assets to meet demonstrated social needs. Based on a multidimensional analysis of the assets¿ value and the social processes through which these values materialize, the paper, identifies measures for better matching the interests of and benefits obtained by those involved in the conservation process. It is suggested that the process will be more sustainable and capable of being expanded in a manner corresponding to the magnitude and value of the region¿s heritage if those who benefit from it are also those who promote and pay for it. Critical review of some of the projects funded by the Inter-American Development Bank, which may be considered ongoing experiments, inspires moderate optimism about the viability of the proposed changes

Issues in State Modernization in Ecuador

Ecuador's current political economy is largely a product of the boom that took place in the country's oil sector in the early 1970s. The pressure of heightened revenue flows created an oil-exporting factional democracy, and a dichotomy between policies focused on minimizing the pitfalls of natural resource rents (widespread corruption, Dutch disease, etc.) and individual actors driven to maximize their profits. Today, these pressures continue to mount for the country and in the face of significant positive growth indicators

Propuesta de reforma tributaria para mejorar la competitividad de la economía argentina

En este estudio se presenta un diagnóstico del sistema tributario argentino, con sus principales defectos y una serie de propuestas de reforma a implementar a medio y largo plazo para mejorar la competitividad del país frente a la competencia externa

Financial Turmoil and the Choice of Exchange Rate Regime

Financial turmoil is becoming a fact of life in Latin America. The 1990s have been characterized by enormous volatility in the magnitude and cost of capital flows. The correlation of capital swings across disparate countries suggests that the quality of emerging market policies in addition to global factors have been the main actors in this drama. Therefore, the blame for financial turmoil has moved away from inappropriate domestic policies. Instead, the paradigm has shifted to one of determining which policies - domestic or international - are most effective in taming the destabilizing effects of inherently volatile capital flows

Swimming Against the Tide: Strategies for Improving Equity in Health

The evidence shows that government spending for health in many developing countries benefits the well-to-do more than the poor. However, a combination of favorable political forces and sound public policies can shift the focus of government expenditures toward the poor. Doing this is an essential part of any effective poverty reduction program in developing countries

Evaluación para el desarrollo social: Aportes para un debate abierto en América Latina

Durante ya varios años, el Banco Interamericano de Desarrollo (BID) ha centrado sus esfuerzos en asegurar que los programas e iniciativas ligadas al desarrollo, promovidas por el Banco, logren resultados sostenibles en el tiempo. Esta misma ansiedad se encuentra manifiesta en la agenda de varios de los países de América Latina, agobiados por la necesidad de mejorar las condiciones económicas, sociales e institucionales que afligen actualmente a sus poblaciones. La efectividad para el desarrollo se convierte así en uno de los ejes de acción en la región.Desde el INDES, apostamos por una visión integral que articule diferentes perspectivas del desarrollo (económica, social, político-institucional y cultural) y, para alcanzarla, propone una capacitación transformadora. Esto implica alinear capacidades técnicas en torno a objetivos sociales cada vez más complejos y también construir un lenguaje común a favor de esta agenda. Creemos que la capacitación puede ser una herramienta valiosa para conseguir ese cambio, para lograr una región más próspera y más incluyente. Ya desde los primeros años en que el enfoque de gerencia social del INDES empezó a tomar cuerpo, la evaluación se convirtió en parte central de su apuesta. La evaluación abre la posibilidad de combinar esa visión integradora y, a la vez, contribuye a la iteración e interacción entre diferentes actores en un proceso que promueve la generación de resultados valiosos. Este libro que se sitúa en un momento de quiebre en el debate sobre la evaluación que gira entre las exigencias metodológicas cada vez más rigurosas y la necesidad de asegurar cambios sociales verdaderos. En esta dinámica, las mediciones de las diferentes dimensiones del desarrollo social y los hallazgos de diferentes evaluaciones representan tan sólo el primer paso para asegurar resultados de corto y largo plazo. Queremos presentar este esfuerzo como una pieza más de un conjunto de publicaciones desarrolladas desde el programa de capacitación que el INDES instaló en Guatemala hace un poco más de dos años. Así, la evaluación debe servir para alcanzar una comprensión cada vez más precisa de los nuevos desafíos de la gerencia social. Temas como la exclusión social, la violencia juvenil o la percepción de falta de transparencia en el accionar público requieren de una mirada comprensiva, flexible y dinámica que permita ir aprendiendo constantemente de la evidencia y del diálogo con múltiples actores

Make or Buy?: Approaches to Financial Market Integration

The sharp differences between financial markets as they exist in Latin America and how we might expect them to look under full integration suggest that the financial constraints on Latin American economic development have much to do with the region's financial markets' incomplete integration in the world financial system. This paper suggests that the underlying cause of Latin America's limited integration with world financial markets is not explicit barriers to international financial transactions. Rather, weaknesses in the domestic financial markets that would be called upon to intermediate international capital flows impedes integration. An appropriate financial integration approach can strengthen and deepen the domestic financial system by permitting indirect imports of the requisite public goods (provided by the banks' home countries) and by allowing a greater diversification of national risks

Do Democracies Breed Rent-Seeking Behavior?

Using objective institutional historical data we test the link between extent, duration, and transparency in democracies and rent-seeking behavior using time-series and panel data approaches. In this paper we focus on the case of Uruguay, an ethnically homogeneous country. We find three main results. First, democratic regimes are negatively linked with rent-seeking actions. Second, the longer the duration of democracy, the less rent-seeking in a society. Third, legislation enacted more transparently is negatively correlated with rent-seeking behavior. Our results are robust to the use of different econometric methods and basic robustness tests and are consistent with prevailing theory

Political Environment and Privatization Prices

This paper studies the link between the political and institutional context and privatization sales prices. The latter serves as a measure for assessing the relative performance of the privatization goals. Whereas this link has been studied theoretically, there are very few, if any, empirical papers on this relationship. Using data from 308 privatizations around the world and applying a cross-country approach (including instrumental variables), we find that, while the overall political regime does not matter much for prices, the political processes beyond the basic regime do matter. Institutional context also produces a significant impact on prices. Both results are robust to changes in specification