Project

The Monetary and Fiscal History of Latin America

The goal of this project is to better understand the causes of economic stagnation and decline in Latin America.

The Monetary and Fiscal History of Latin America Project was launched in 2013 to analyze economic data from the largest Latin America economies, to produce a comprehensive monetary and fiscal history of the region. The papers use a common conceptual framework and a comparable data set to narrate the economic histories of 11 Latin American countries since 1960. The authors are country experts who participated in numerous meetings over five years to discuss and receive feedback on their findings.

The project was organized and managed by the University of Chicago’s Fernando Alvarez and Lars Peter Hansen, the University of Minnesota’s Timothy Kehoe, the Minneapolis Federal Reserve Bank’s Juan Pablo Nicolini, and New York University’s Thomas Sargent, also a Senior Fellow with UChicago’s Kenneth C. Griffin Department of Economics. These distinguished scholars have summarized key findings from the collective country case studies to highlight the impacts of specific policy options. The findings of this project offer lessons for future policy in Latin America and other regions of the world. Along with the scholarship represented in this book, the featured  economists in this project worked with BFI to create a dynamic database for the eleven Latin American countries under review (https://mafhola.uchicago.edu/), which will inform and inspire scholarship for years to come.

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Associated Scholars

UChicago Scholar

Fernando Alvarez

Charles F. Grey Distinguished Service Professor, the Kenneth C. Griffin Department of Economics
UChicago Scholar

Lars Peter Hansen

The David Rockefeller Distinguished Service Professor in Economics and Statistics, the Kenneth C. Griffin Department of Economics and the Booth School of Business; Director of BFI's Macro Finance Research Program

Juan Pablo Nicolini

Senior Research Economist, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis
Distinguished Research Fellow

Thomas J. Sargent

William R. Berkley Professor of Economics and Business, New York University, Stern School of Business

Associated Research

BFI Working Paper·Mar 28, 2024

Bourbon Reforms and State Capacity in the Spanish Empire

Giorgio Chiovelli, Leopoldo Fergusson, Luis Martínez, Juan David Torres, and Felipe Valencia Caicedo
Topics: Tax & Budget

Associated Insights

Research Briefs·May 30, 2024

Bourbon Reforms and State Capacity in the Spanish Empire

Giorgio Chiovelli, Leopoldo Fergusson, Luis Martínez, Juan David Torres, and Felipe Valencia Caicedo
The Spanish colonial empire in Latin America offers insights into the effects of state formation on economic development and political institutions, with lessons for today. Spain introduced a system in the late 18th century that relied on appointed governors with...
Topics: Tax & Budget