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Intro -- Contents -- I. INTRODUCTION -- II. OVERVIEW OF THE ARGENTINE BANKS IN THE RUN-UP TO THE CRISIS -- III. DESCRIPTIVE LOOK AT ARGENTINE BANKS IN THE 1995-2001 PERIOD -- IV. ECONOMETRIC ANALYSIS -- V. CONCLUSIONS -- REFERENCES.

The simple answer to both questions in the title of this paper. No. We concentrate on three key aspects of the banking system's difficulties during the 2001-02 crisis. Two are related to bank behavior (increasing dollarization of the balance sheet and expanding exposure to the government), and the other is related to the degree by which banks were hurt by depositor preferences, specifically, the run on deposits during 2001. We find that there was substantial cross-bank variation, that is, not all banks behaved equally nor were hurt equally by the macroeconomic shocks they faced during the run-up to the crisis. Furthermore, using panel data estimation, we find that depositors were able to distinguish high-risk from low-risk banks, and that individual bank's exposure to currency and government default risk depended on fundamentals and other bank-specific characteristics. Finally, our results have implications for the existence of market discipline in periods of stress, and for banking regulation, which may have led banks to underestimate some of the risks they incurred.

The simple answer to both questions in the title of this paper is: No. We concentrate on the three main risk elements that contributed to the banking system’s difficulties during the crisis: increasing dollarization of the balance sheet, expanding exposure to the government, and, eventually, the run on deposits. We find that there was substantial cross-bank variation in these elements—that is, not all banks were hurt equally by macroeconomic shocks. Furthermore, using panel data estimation for the 1998–2001 period, we find that depositors were able to distinguish high- from low-risk banks, and that individual banks’ exposure to currency and government default risk depended on bank fundamentals and other characteristics. Thus, not all banks behaved equally in the run-up to the crisis. Finally, our results have implications for the existence of market discipline in periods of stress and for banking regulation, which may have led banks to underestimate some of the risks they incurred

For more than three decades, Honduras's average annual growth in real per capita GDP has been almost zero and highly uneven, even though its total investment-to-GDP ratio has been relatively large. This paper argues that policy and efficiency variables seem to have had less of an influence on growth in Honduras than they had on other countries. Instead, lack of growth can be attributed to the offsetting negative influence of low labor and capital productivity, which result from deficient levels of human capital and inadequate composition of investment. Other constraints to growth in Honduras include inadequate physical and institutional infrastructures.

To monitor fiscal sustainability, this paper proposes a recursive algorithm derived from the law of motion of the debt-to-GDP ratio, subject to a government reaction function that links convergence to the targeted debt ratio with primary fiscal surpluses. Based on quarterly estimates of this algorithm in the 1990s, 12 developed and developing countries are ranked according to their degree of sustainability. For a number of countries, the paper finds evidence of causality between the fiscal policy stance and growth-adjusted real interest rates.

The simple answer to both questions in the title of this paper is: No. We concentrate on the three main risk elements that contributed to the banking system's difficulties during the crisis: increasing dollarization of the balance sheet, expanding exposure to the government, and, eventually, the run on deposits. We find that there was substantial cross-bank variation in these elements--that is, not all banks were hurt equally by macroeconomic shocks. Furthermore, using panel data estimation for the 1998-2001 period, we find that depositors were able to distinguish high- from low-risk banks, and that individual banks' exposure to currency and government default risk depended on bank fundamentals and other characteristics. Thus, not all banks behaved equally in the run-up to the crisis. Finally, our results have implications for the existence of market discipline in periods of stress and for banking regulation, which may have led banks to underestimate some of the risks they incurred.

This study shows that in Mexico there is a long-run relationship between the real exchange rate and capital inflows, the external terms of trade, and productivity in the manufacturing sector. A once-and-for-all unit increase in the ratio of quarterly capital inflow to quarterly (annualized) GDP causes a long-run real appreciation of the peso of about 12 percent. The analysis also reveals a structural break in 1995, which coincides with the change to a floating exchange rate arrangement, and an overvaluation of the peso in real terms on the eve of the end-1994 crisis in the range of 12 to 25 percent.

This paper examines the relations between fluctuations in real exchange rates among the major currencies and fluctuations in real commodity prices. Increased exchange rate volatility calls for a better understanding of these relations. To the best of our knowledge, no systematic study of those effects has been performed on a wide range of commodities, although Sjaastad and Scacciavillani (1993) have done so for gold. We build on their approach and construct a supply and demand multi-country model, with world market clearing, which incorporates speculative and non-speculative demands for inventories and \"static\" and \"rational\" expectations. We estimate the model using several econometric methods on monthly data from January 1972 to January 1992 for 65 commodity prices. The paper finds that, for a small group of commodities, the dollar-denominated price is significantly influenced by the deutsche mark and the yen. The empirical results show that geographical proximity matters, and that supply and demand elasticities are important in determining the commodity price in world markets above and beyond the size of the share of those commodities in world trade.

This paper finds convergence of real per capita GDP in Mexico's states and regions during the period of higher average national per capita growth (1970-85), and divergence during the lower-growth period (1985-93). These results hold across states and regions and within regions. The poorest states and regions grew more than twice as fast as the rest during the first period and experienced absolute and relative decline during the second period. The growth performance of a poor state in relation to the group of poor states was more erratic than the growth performance of a richer state in relation to its group.