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Latin America: An End to Boom and Bust?
Article

Latin America: An End to Boom and Bust?

Euromoney, 2019

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Editorial Rating

8

Qualities

  • Analytical
  • Overview
  • For Experts

Recommendation

A long series of  ups and downs in Latin America’s economies has led to policy reforms that have improved the region’s longer term well-being. But rather than signaling an end to sharp-edged gyrations, these adjustments appear to have better prepared the continent for continued challenges. Drawing on interviews with financial industry leaders, Euromoney journalist Rob Dwyer offers an astute look at the extreme cyclicality that has characterized Latin American economies for many years, as well as the harsh lessons that external debt, currency volatility, geopolitical tensions and populism have taught. Executives, investors and regional analysts will appreciate this broad overview.

Summary

Latin America’s economic history has been volatile. Excessive debt lay at the core of many of its past crises. A surfeit of petrodollars in the 1970s caused banks to lend to excess, with disastrous results. The confluence of increased debt service and a steep US interest rate hike placed many of the indebted nations of the region in a bind in the 1980s: Countries failed to meet their obligations, and inflation spiked. An oil and commodities boom led producing countries to engage in profligate fiscal behavior. 

Since then, economic...

About the Author

Rob Dwyer is Latin America editor for Euromoney.