Capital flows to Latin America : Is there evidence of contagion effects?

Mexico's economic crisis in December 1994 gave renewed importance to the issue of"spillover"or"contagion"effects in other emerging market economies (and their sensitivity to events in larger countries in the region.) They focus on how small open economies are affected by their neighbors'ecomomic developments and what role financial markets play in the transmission of disturbances. They find that: (1) There was evidence of increased comovement across weekly equity and Brady bond returns for emerging markets in Latin America after the Mexican crisis. Such comovement could be seen as evidence of herding behavior among investors, or as a result of the effect on stock prices in other markets when a few large investors in one market sell off equities to raise cash. (2) Contagion may be more regional than global--the degree of comovement after the crisis increased in both Asia and Latin America, but regional patterns differed. (3) International capital movements are all significantly affected by swings in interest rates in the United States. Other things being equal, increases in U.S. interest rates are associated with capital outflows from Latin America. Large and small countries are equally vulnerable. (4) Developments in large countries influence the capital account balance of all countries in the region through a more persistent form of contagion than that associated with a crisis. Other things being equal, capital flows in and out of large countries in a region tend to encourage flows affecting the smaller countries, although capital developments in small countries appear to have no systematic impact on larger countries. (5) Smaller Latin American countries appear to be affected more by developments in a core set of countries in a region than by developments in a single country.Economic Theory&Research,Capital Markets and Capital Flows,Banks&Banking Reform,International Terrorism&Counterterrorism,Fiscal&Monetary Policy,Economic Theory&Research,Banks&Banking Reform,Macroeconomic Management,Financial Intermediation,Environmental Economics&Policies

Capital Flows to Latin America: Is There Evidence of Contagion Effects?”

The issue of "spillover or contagion" effects has acquired renewed importance in light of the Mexican crisis in December 1994 and the effect that this event has had on other emerging market economies. Relatively little empirical analysis exists on how small open economies are affected by economic developments in their neighbors and what role financial markets play in the transmission of disturbances. This paper attempts to fill that gap by examining recent developments in emerging equity markets in Asia and Latin America and longer term trends and cycles in capital flows to Latin American economies and their sensitivity to events in the larger countries in the region.

Fear of floating

Many emerging market countries have suffered financial crises. One view blames soft pegs for these crises. Adherents to that view suggest that countries move to corner solutions--hard pegs or floating exchange rates. We analyze the behavior of exchange rates, reserves, and interest rates to assess whether there is evidence that country practice is moving toward corner solutions. We focus on whether countries that claim they are floating are indeed doing so. We find that countries that say they allow their exchange rate to float mostly do not--there seems to be an epidemic case of “fear of floating.”exchange rates pegs reserves interest rates credibility fear of floating

When Capital Inflows Come to a Sudden Stop: Consequences and Policy Options

In this paper we present evidence that capital account reversals have become more severe for emerging markets. Because policy options are limited in the midst of a capital market crisis and because so many countries have already had crises recently, we focus on some of the policies that could reduce the incidence of crises in the first place, or at least make the sudden stop problem less severe. In this regard, we consider the relative merits of capital controls and dollarization. We conclude that, while the evidence suggests that capital controls appear to influence the composition of flows skewing flows away from short maturities, such policies are not likely to be a long-run solution to the recurring problem of sudden capital flow reversals. Yet, because fear of floating, many emerging markets are likely to turn to increased reliance on controls. Dollarization would appear to have the edge as a more market-oriented option to ameliorate, if not eliminate, the sudden stop problem.capital flows, crises, emerging markets, sudden stops

Fixing for your life

The Asian crisis took place against a background of exchange rate regimes that were characterized as soft pegs. This has led many analysts to conclude that “the peg did it” and that emerging markets (EMs) should “just say no” to pegged exchange rates. We present evidence that EMs are very different from developed economies in key dimensions that play a key role when it comes to the choice of exchange rate regime--floating for EMs is no panacea. In EMs currency crashes are contractionary, the adjustments in the current account are far more acute. Credibility and market access, as captured in the behavior of credit ratings and interest rates, is adversely affected by devaluations or depreciations. Exchange rate volatility is more damaging to trade and the passthrough from exchange rate swings to inflation is far higher in EMs. These differences between emerging and developed economies may explain EMs reluctance to tolerate large exchange rate movements. In a simple framework we illustrate why large exchange rate swings are feared when access to international credit may be lost.financial crisis exchange rate passthrough volatility credit ratings banking downgrades

Reflections on Dollarization

During the past few years, many emerging market countries have suffered severe currency and banking crises. A popular view blames fixed exchange rates--specifically, soft pegs--for these financial meltdowns. Indeed, fixed exchange rates have been so demonized by some adherents to that view that the only alternative for emerging markets seems to be to allow their currencies to float. Other analysts draw a very different lesson from these events. After all, a country cannot have a currency crisis if it does not have a domestic currency in the first place; firms, banks, and households are immune to currency mismatches if all assets and liabilities are denominated in the same currency. The obvious policy recommendation that follows is that full dollarization may, in some cases, be desirable. Some observers forecast that intermediate exchange rate regimes will vanish, as countries move toward corner solutions--with freely-floating exchange rate regimes at one end, hard pegs, such as currency boards or dollarization, at the other. Thus, the current circumstances provide the ingredients for a rich policy debate.

Capital Flow Reversals,the Exchange Rate Debate,and Dollarization

More frequent and increasingly severe crises are encouraging emerging market economies to seek means to make themselves less vulnerable to sudden stops in capital flows. Capital controls have been widely discussed, but dollarization may offer a longer-term and more market-friendly solution.capital flows, crises, exchange rates

A Formal Definition for Configuration

There exists a wide set of techniques to perform keyword-based search over relational databases but all of them match the keywords in the users' queries to elements of the databases to be queried as first step. The matching process is a time-consuming and complex task. So, improving the performance of this task is a key issue to improve the keyword based search on relational data sources.In this work, we show how to model the matching process on keyword-based search on relational databases by means of the symmetric group. Besides, how this approach reduces the search space is explained in detail

La 'imagen país' de España

Intervención de la Ministra de Cultura, Dª Carmen Calvo, en la inauguración del Seminario sobre Diplomacia Pública organizado por el Real Instituto Elcano con la colaboración del Ministerio de Asuntos Exteriores y de Cooperación y de las embajadas de los EE.UU, Alemania y Reino Unido; celebrado en la Escuela Diplomática de Madrid el 10 de octubre de 2006

Inflows of capital to developing countries in the 1990s

Half a decade has passed since the resurgence of international capital flows to many developing countries. The recent surge in capital inflows was initially attributed to domestic developments, such as the sound policies and stronger economic performance of a handful of countries. Eventually, it became clear that the phenomenon was widespread, affecting countries with very diverse characteristics. This pattern suggested that global factors, like cyclical movements in interest rates, were especially important. This paper discusses the principal facts, developments and policies that characterize the current episode of capital inflows to Asia and Latin America.capital flows international interest rates monetary policy exchange rates