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This book is an attempt to reflect on what we have learned from financial policies and financial crises in Latin America. The 21 chapters in this volume capture the developments in various ways. They cover theoretical contributions, regional empirical studies, and specific inquiries on Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Cuba, Ecuador, Mexico, Peru and Venezuela. The breadth of methodologies implemented suggests that researchers are looking at Latin American financial markets through a variety of lenses. The chapters are divided into 7 parts, including, in Part I, an initial overview. Part II examines the foreign exchange markets in Latin America and their interactions with other markets. Part III discusses dollarization issues in the region. Part IV then takes up the issue of banking in Latin America. Equity and bond markets are considered in Parts V and VI, respectively. Lastly, Part VII considers pension systems in Latin America. Taken as a whole, the 21 chapters seize the excitement of studying Latin America and provide lessons that are applicable around the world.

This paper analyzes two views on the issue of FDI and stock market development. The first view is that FDI is negatively correlated with the development of stock markets. The second view is that FDI is positively related to stock market development. After addressing the issues that might lead to these conclusions, the hypothesis is tested that the level of stock market development in a country is positively correlated to FDI. Data is collected from four Latin American countries and an empirical model is proposed to explain the observed relationship. Additional explanatory variables were included, and a model is developed.

Corporate bonds have been a major source of medium and long-term financing in Brazil. We analyze how corporate bond covenants have been used to mitigate agency costs between shareholders and bondholders. Our data includes 119 corporate bond indentures issued in Brazil from 1998 to 2001. This paper analyzes whether public investors have demanded stricter terms in corporate bond indentures. When comparing to previous studies of Anderson (1999) and of Filgueira and Leal (2001), we found empirical evidence that: (a) more bond issues with no indexed inflation features, but more floating rate interest features to match market needs; (b) no major changes for contingent maturity features; (c) loose covenants with respect to dividend and financing actions; and (d) tighter covenants regarding change in control and/or ownership and negative pledge. There is empirical evidence that the role of sponsor may partially mitigate risks borne by bondholders.

In 1995 the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) introduced a Brazilian Real futures contract. This study explores whether the level of futures contract hedging activity has affected the volatility in Brazil’s equity market. As a proxy for volatility, a threshold autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity (TARCH) model is employed to obtain the conditional variance of the log-daily returns in the BOVESPA, the Brazilian stock market index. Impulse response functions from a vector autoregressive (VAR) model are utilized to analyze the relationship between volatility and futures trading activity. The empirical results indicate that increased hedging activity has increased return volatility in Brazil’s equity markets.

In September 1999, the Central Bank of Chile eliminated the floating band for the nominal exchange rate, which operated since 1984, and established a free float. This lasted until the burst of the last Argentinean economic crisis in July 2001. Since then, the Central Bank has smoothed out the exchange rate path by selling U.S. dollars and/or issuing U.S. dollar-denominated bonds. We examine the free float period by assessing whether the increase in exchange rate volatility was as sharp as expected. We show that volatility went up, but only slightly.

This paper extends a recent study on financial dollarization of Broda and Levy Yeyati (2003) by introducing a lending of last resort intervention contingent both on banks’ portfolio currency composition and on banks’ monitoring effort. We show that when the lender of last resort commitment to intervene is matched with some operational discretion, according to a “constructive ambiguity” approach, then the provision of emergency liquidity may be crucial to enable distressed, but well-behaved banks, to survive and finance “high quality” investment projects.

Latin American financial executives are emerging as strategic planners. In this chapter some linkages between strategy and finance in the case of Latin American corporations are shown to guide decision-makers in gaining insights when applying recognized methods of capital budgeting. Results of a survey of corporate executives shed light on the criteria used in corporations of the region to evaluate investment projects, make capital budgeting decisions, consider adjustments needed, and make an appraisal of the overall interaction of factors related to strategic capital budgeting.

Social pension and security systems worldwide are experiencing difficulties in maintaining the financing required to provide promised benefits. Despite their economic and political difficulties, many Latin American countries have arguably been more proactive and innovative with the implementation of social security reform than other regions of the world. Suggestions for reform of the Social Security system in Venezuela are provided by integrating many of the same concepts found in other restructurings in Latin America. It is the conclusion of this analysis that, given the political and economic instability of the region, a major overhaul of the existing system is not politically feasible. An incremental approach with minimal disruption is more attainable given the circumstances.