After a prolonged and almost total reliance on debt restructurings and concerted new money facilities, several Latin American countries have, over the last two years, mobilized voluntary financing from international capital markets. Although the phenomenon is still relatively limited in terms of volume and number of borrowers, it has nevertheless attracted considerable attention. The paper reviews the nature, magnitude and terms of the market re-entry process and, by drawing upon recent country experiences, analyzes the factors that have facilitated it. This provides the basis for a discussion of the key elements affecting the short-term prospects for Latin American private and public sector voluntary debt and equity financing from international capital markets.

After a prolonged and almost total reliance on debt restructurings and concerted new money facilities, several Latin American countries have, over the last two years, mobilized voluntary financing from international capital markets. Although the phenomenon is still relatively limited in terms of volume and number of borrowers, it has nevertheless attracted considerable attention. The paper reviews the nature, magnitude and terms of the market re-entry process and, by drawing upon recent country experiences, analyzes the factors that have facilitated it. This provides the basis for a discussion of the key elements affecting the short-term prospects for Latin American private and public sector voluntary debt and equity financing from international capital markets.

For Latin America, the Cold War was anything but cold. Nor was it the so-called “long peace” afforded the world’s superpowers by their nuclear standoff. In this book, the first to take an international perspective on the postwar decades in the region, Hal Brands sets out to explain what exactly happened in Latin America during the Cold War, and why it was so traumatic. Tracing the tumultuous course of regional affairs from the late 1940s through the early 1990s, Latin America’s Cold War delves into the myriad crises and turning points of the period—the Cuban revolution and its aftermath; the recurring cycles of insurgency and counter-insurgency; the emergence of currents like the National Security Doctrine, liberation theology, and dependency theory; the rise and demise of a hemispheric diplomatic challenge to U.S. hegemony in the 1970s; the conflagration that engulfed Central America from the Nicaraguan revolution onward; and the democratic and economic reforms of the 1980s. Most important, the book chronicles these events in a way that is both multinational and multilayered, weaving the experiences of a diverse cast of characters into an understanding of how global, regional, and local influences interacted to shape Cold War crises in Latin America. Ultimately, Brands exposes Latin America’s Cold War as not a single conflict, but rather a series of overlapping political, social, geostrategic, and ideological struggles whose repercussions can be felt to this day.

This paper develops an endogenous growth model of the influence of public investment, public transfers, and distortionary taxation on the rate of economic growth. The growth–enhancing effects of investment in public capital and transfer payments are modeled, as is the growth–inhibiting influence of the levying of distortionary taxes that are used to fund such expenditure. The theoretical implications of the model are then tested with data from 23 developed countries between 1971 and 1988, and time series cross sectional results are obtained that support the proposed influence of the public finance variables on economic growth.

This landmark collection of essays addresses the question: Given peace in the MiddleEast, then what? Focusing on the countries most immediately affected by the Arab-Israeli conflict,economists representing Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, and the Occupied Territories offer differingperspectives on potential opportunities and difficulties and on the actions that would be requiredto redirect, rejuvenate, and sustain the economies of the region.The book opens with case studies ofEgypt, Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Jordan, and the West Bank and Gaza Strip. It then examines overallregional issues such as the economic consequences of peace and the economic reforms needed tomaximize peace dividends. Essays in the last part focus on the transition to peace and the futureeconomic development of the Palestinian, Israeli, Jordanian, and other regional economiesTopicsaddressed include the relation of defense spending to the economy, the implications of a peace fortrade across borders, the benefits of economic cooperation between Israelis and Palestinians, andthe role of foreign aid in economic reconstruction in the Middle East.Stanley Fischer is Professorof Economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dani Rodrik is Associate Professor ofPublic Policy at the Kennedy School, Harvard University. Elias Tuma is Professor of Economics at theUniversity of California, Davis.

Within a broad framework for analyzing portfolio capital flows to developing countries, the paper undertakes a comparative analysis of equity markets in six Middle Eastern countries. The analysis, based primarily on a range of quantitative indicators, identifies the principal characteristics of these markets, including relative to international comparators, and examines associated structural features. This, along with an analysis of the informational efficiency of selected markets in the region, provides a basis for the subsequent review of policies for enhancing the role of equity markets in the macroeconomy of Middle Eastern countries.

A new aggregation scheme used to measure the sources of fiscal financing of indebted countries suggests that there was a fundamental improvement in the seniority of domestic debt at the expense of foreign bank debt during the late 1980s. We argue that this was the revenue maximizing response of governments to internal and external capital flight that drained the domestic financial “tax base” subject to indirect taxation. Empirical analysis indicates that the profile of the sources of fiscal financing influenced external debt values. The econometric analysis also implies that previous studies have neglected an important reason for the decline in loan values from 1985 to 1989: the increase in international interest rates.

Authors of Working Papers are normally staff members of the Fund or consultants, although on occasion outside authors may collaborate with a staff member in writing a paper. The views expressed in the Working Papers or their summaries are, however, those of the authors and should not necessarily be interpreted as representing the views of the Fund. Copies of individual Working Papers and information on subscriptions to the annual series of Working Papers may be obtained from IMF Publication Services, International Monetary Fund, 700 19th Street, Washington, D.C. 20431. Telephone: (202) 623-7430 Telefax: (202) 623-7201 This compilation of summaries of Working Papers released during July-December 1994 is being issued as a part of the Working Paper series. It is designed to provide the reader with an overview of the research work performed by the staff during the period.