Saving Behavior in Latin America: Overview and Policy Issues

This paper reviews and contributes to the policy debate on the issue of saving in Latin America, presenting an alternative perspective on the relationship between saving and growth, saving and inflation stabilization and structural reform, and saving and capital flows.

Booms and Busts in Latin America: The Role of External Factors

This paper analyzes the relevance of external factors in average quarterly GDP growth for 1990-2006 in the seven largest Latin American countries (LAC7). Modeling the relationship between LAC7 GDP and several external factors, it is found that those factors account for a significant share of variance in LAC7 GDP growth, and that external shocks produce significant responses. Likewise, a significant share of recent LAC7 growth performance can be explained by an external factor “tailwind. ” Also evaluated is the impact of deterioration in external financial conditions. Finally, the relevance of these findings for policy evaluation is emphasized. Growth performance, the strength or weakness of macroeconomic fundamentals and the impact of domestic macro and micro policies on growth can only be properly appraised by first filtering out the effects of external factors.

Capital flows and saving in Latin America and Asia: A reinterpretation

Both theory and the empirical evidence for a broad range of countries have identified a negative relationship between domestic and foreign saving. Still, based on the experience of the 1990s, a popular view has emerged that domestic and foreign saving are positively related in Asia and negatively related in Latin America. We argue that this popular discussion does not discriminate between trends in domestic saving (which are very different in the two regions) and the cyclical component of saving, which is linked to capital flows. We show that, when trend and cyclical components of domestic saving and capital flows are properly taken into account, the two regions do not differ in the short-run response of domestic saving to capital inflows. We conclude that the main differences pertain to the long-run behavior of saving rates, which are driven by trends in demographic factors, per capita GDP, and other factors that have little to do with fluctuations in capital flows.international capital flows saving investment cycles

Sudden Stops, the Real Exchange Rate, and Fiscal Sustainability: Argentina's Lessons

We offer an alternative explanation for the fall of Argentina's Convertibility Program based on the country's vulnerability to Sudden Stops in capital flows. Sudden Stops are typically accompanied by a substantial increase in the real exchange rate that breaks havoc in countries that are heavily dollarized in their liabilities, turning otherwise sustainable fiscal and corporate sector positions into unsustainable ones. In particular, we stress that the required change in relative prices is larger the more closed an economy is in terms of its supply of tradable goods. By contrasting Argentina's performance relative to other Latin American countries that were also subject to the Sudden Stop triggered by the Russian crisis of 1998, we identify key vulnerability indicators that separated Argentina from its piers. We also provide an explanation for the political maelstrom that ensued after the Sudden Stop, based on a War of Attrition argument related to the wealth redistribution conflict triggered by the Sudden Stop and fiscal collapse. This framework also provides elements to rationalize the banking crisis that accompanied the fall of Convertibility.

Phoenix Miracles in Emerging Markets: Recovering without Credit from Systemic Financial Crises

Using a sample of emerging markets that are integrated into global bond markets, we analyze the collapse and recovery phase of output collapses that coincide with systemic sudden stops, defined as periods of skyrocketing aggregate bond spreads and large capital flow reversals. Our findings indicate the presence of a very similar pattern across different episodes: output recovers with virtually no recovery in either domestic or foreign credit, a phenomenon that we call a Phoenix Miracle, where output rises from its ashes, suggesting that firms go through a process of financial engineering to restore liquidity outside formal credit markets. Moreover, we show that the U. S. Great Depression could be catalogued as a Phoenix Miracle. However, in contrast to the U. S. Great Depression, EM output collapses occur in a context of accelerating price inflation and falling real wages, casting doubt on price deflation and nominal wage rigidity as key elements in explaining output collapse, and suggesting that financial factors figure prominently in these collapses.

Phoenix Miracles in Emerging Markets: Recovering without Credit from Systemic Financial Crises

Using a sample of emerging markets that are integrated into global bond markets, we analyze the collapse and recovery phase of output collapses that coincide with systemic sudden stops, defined as periods of skyrocketing aggregate bond spreads and large capital flow reversals. Our findings indicate the presence of a very similar pattern across different episodes: output recovers with virtually no recovery in either domestic or foreign credit, a phenomenon that we call Phoenix Miracle, where output %u201Crises from its ashes%u201D, suggesting that firms go through a process of financial engineering to restore liquidity outside the formal credit markets. Moreover, we show that the US Great Depression could be catalogued as a Phoenix Miracle. However, in contrast to the US Great Depression, EM output collapses occur in a context of accelerating price inflation and falling real wages, casting doubts on price deflation and nominal wage rigidity as key elements in explaining output collapse, and suggesting that financial factors are prominent for understanding these collapses.

Sudden Stop, Financial Factors and Economic Collpase in Latin America: Learning from Argentina and Chile

This paper shows that the Russian 1998 crisis had a big impact on capital flows to Emerging Market Economies, EMs, especially in Latin America, and that the impact of the Russian shock differs quite markedly across EMs. To illustrate this statement, we compare the polar cases of Chile and Argentina. While Chile exhibited a significant economic slowdown after August 1998, it did not suffer the excruciating collapse suffered by Argentina, where even the payments system came to a full stop. We attribute their difference to the fact that Chile is more open to trade than Argentina, and that it appears to suffer much less from balance-sheet currency-denomination mismatch that was rampant in Argentina before the 2002 crisis (due to large domestic liability dollarization). The paper is essentially descriptive but is in line with and, thus, complements econometric studies like Calvo, Izquierdo and Mejia (NBER Working Paper 10520). The final section addresses policy issues in light of the paper's findings and conjectures.

Crecimiento y financiamiento externo en América Latina

(Disponible en idioma inglés únicamente) En este trabajo se trata el desempeño económico de América Latina durante la última década, y se le presta atención especial al crecimiento y al sector financiero. En particular, se muestra que factores externos tales como las tasas de interés en EE. UU. y el ciclo económico desempeñan un papel clave en los ingresos de capitales, la inversión y el crecimiento. Como consecuencia de ello, el crecimiento económico de la región tiende a ser frágil y exhibe un elevado grado de movimiento conjunto, es decir, una elevada correlación de la producción entre los países. Esta última característica exacerba la fragilidad, porque hay poco espacio para el aseguramiento mutuo dentro de América Latina, en caso de que un país sufra una sacudida grave, y el financiamiento durante los cambios desfavorables de la coyuntura debe provenir principalmente de fuera de la región.

Política Fiscal Sustentable: Un marco básico

The main purpose of this paper is to provide a simple analytical framework that can guide the development of indicators of fiscal policy sustainability in economies which operate in a highly volatile macroeconomic environment.