Domestic capital formation, financial intermediation and economic development in Peru

This paper focusses on the reasons of the poor performance of domestic resource mobilization in Peru. It begins with an analysis of the structure of domestic savings and its changes in the course of economic development (Section II) . After the description of the Peruvian financial sector (Section III) financial policies since the early 1970 are reviewed and the effects of financial repression discussed (Section IV). Finally some policy suggestions to improve domestic resource mobilization are presented.

On the structuralist view of inflation in some Latin American countries: A reassessment

Comparing inflation rates internationally, one finds a number of Latin American countries in the lead. Therefore, when investigating inflation in LDCs, it has become common practice to refer to these countries as prime examples. Mainly two theories have been put forward to explain Latin American inflation: the monetarist and structuralist hypotheses. While in the monetarist theory aggregate excess demand resulting from an excess supply of money is regarded as the only cause of inflation, the structuralist theory ascribes inflation also to the composition of demand for products and services accompanied by inflexibilities in the productive structure. The purpose of this paper is to give further empirical evidence for the structuralist view of inflation in six selected Latin American countries: Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru. They have all been highly prone to inflation in the past. First, we outline the theoretical background of our investigation. Subsequently, empirical tests of the hypotheses are provided. Finally, we draw some conclusions from our study and relate the findings to the discussion of the harmful effects of export instability in LDCs.

Financial markets and monetary control under high inflation: The case of Argentina

Argentina's economic development over the last thirty years has been dominated by very high and variable inflation rates. There is widespread agreement that the financial sector is most seriously affected by persistent inflation. This was also true for Argentina. Due to interest rate ceilings and other regulations relative yields on particular financial assets have been affected differently by inflation. While the holdings of non-interest bearing assets (currency in circulation and demand deposits) were fully exposed to the inflation tax , time deposits at a controlled rate or indexed deposits were partially protected from inflation losses, however, at varying degrees. As a consequence there was a tendency to substitute money in circulation and demand deposits for interest-bearing, short-term assets.

Interest rate policies and domestic savings mobilization: A survey of the empir. evidence of Asian countries

The liberalization of interest rates has become more and more an integrated part of the policy advice given to developing countries in order to stimulate domestic savings and to improve the allocative efficiency of investments . One of the most critical assumptions behind this policy approach refers to a high and positive interest rate elasticity of savings. Empirically, this assumption seems not to be supported unanimously. Giovannini (1983) , for instance, concludes from his survey of a sample of econometric studies that the notion of a positive impact of higher interest rates on national savings is not warranted empirically. This would lead to the conclusion that the expected success from interest liberalization policies would be questionable. However, such a judgement is not justified because the mentioned survey has various shortcomings. First, the range of empirical studies covered in the overview is rather limited. Second, the discussion of the interest rate elasticity of savings is not differentiated enough with respect to different savings aggregates. Third, some of the specification and methodological problems existing in estimating interest elasticities of savings are not tackled sufficiently.

Factor market distortions and export performance: An eclect. review of the evidence

This paper is based on a report commissioned by UNCTAD to serve as an input for the 1986 Trade and Development Report. The views expressed here within are solely those of the authors. Furthermore, the publication of this report should in no way be interpreted as official sanctioning or approval of the contents by UNCTAD, nor should even tacit agreement by UNCTAD with the approach, analysis or conclusions be assumed. The report itself attempts to shed some light on a subject which is of paramount importance in international economics, but which has been given surprisingly little attention. The approach taken is based on mainstream economic thought, whereby every effort has been taken to couch the text in terms understandable to informed politicians, businessmen and laymen. This seemed to be essential should the message embodied in this paper be easily absorbed. The authors nonetheless admit that whether the message is accepted depends - inter alia - on the willingness of the reader to allow deductions from an eclectic approach to be generalized upon. Despite this weakness the authors hope that serious discussions will be induced with the aim of improving the international allocation of resources so as to increase the welfare of all parties concerned. In light* of current or rather continuing financial constraints faced by many developing countries, a more efficient use of resources leading to higher income levels must surely be a goal which can be generally agreed upon.

The Impact of rising international interest rates on developing countries: The South Korean experience

This paper evaluates the impact of rising international interest rates on the South Korean economy during the seventies with the help of an econometric macro model. The results show that there was an induced reduction of investment and GDP, yet inflationary pressures were somewhat mitigated by a lowering of capital inflows.

The Argentine financial sector: Performance, problems, and policy issues

This paper focusses on the development of the financial sector under conditions of high inflation. It begins with a description of the Argentine financial sector (Section II) and then reviews three distinct periods of financial policies since the early 1970s (Section III) . In the following chapter the main effects of financial repression are discussed and finally some policy suggestions for a restoration of the financial sector are presented.

Economic costs of large public sector deficits and high inflation: The Argentine lesson

The objective of this paper is to analyse the Argentine experience of large public sector deficits and high inflation, to elaborate the collection and dynamics of the inflation tax used to public financing and to identify the economic costs of this policy. Strong references are made to the experiences of other countries during periods of high inflation. Finally, some policy options are dealt with.

Model-Based Development of Distributed Embedded Systems by the Example of the Scicos/SynDEx Framework

The embedded systems engineering industry faces increasing demands for more functionality, rapidly evolving components, and shrinking schedules. Abilities to quickly adapt to changes, develop products with safe design, minimize project costs, and deliver timely are needed. Model-based development (MBD) follows a separation of concerns by abstracting systems with an appropriate intensity. MBD promises higher comprehension by modeling on several abstraction-levels, formal verification, and automated code generation. This thesis demonstrates MBD with the Scicos/SynDEx framework on a distributed embedded system. Scicos is a modeling and simulation environment for hybrid systems. SynDEx is a rapid prototyping integrated development environment for distributed systems. Performed examples implement well-known control algorithms on a target system containing several networked microcontrollers, sensors, and actuators. The addressed research question tackles the feasibility of MBD for medium-sized embedded systems. In the case of single-processor applications experiments show that the comforts of tool-provided simulation, verification, and code-generation have to be weighed against an additional memory consumption in dynamic and static memory compared to a hand-written approach. Establishing a near-seamless modeling-framework with Scicos/SynDEx is expensive. An increased development effort indicates a high price for developing single applications, but might pay off for product families. A further drawback was that the distributed code generated with SynDEx could not be adapted to microcontrollers without a significant alteration of the scheduling tables. The Scicos/SynDEx framework forms a valuable tool set that, however, still needs many improvements. Therefore, its usage is only recommended for experimental purposes.Comment: 146 pages, Master's Thesi