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        <dcterms:issued>1995</dcterms:issued>
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        <dc:creator>Corden, W. Max</dc:creator>
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        <dcterms:title>Una zona de libre comercio en el Hemisferio Occidental: posibles implicancias para América Latina</dcterms:title>
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E
I
R
S

E

186

financiamiento del desarrollo

I

nsurance underwriter or
financial development fund:
what role for reserve pooling
in Latin America?

Barry Eichengreen

Development Studies Unit
Economic Development Division

Santiago, Chile, November 2006

This document was prepared by Barry Eichengreen, consultant for the Project
Strengthening the role of regional and national financial institutions for
sustainable social development (GER/03/002). This a project that the
Economic Commission for Latina America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) is
carrying out in the Development Studies Unit of the Economic Development
Division, with the financial support of Deutsche Gesellschaft für Technische
Zusammenarbeit (GTZ). The author thanks Humberto Mora and his colleagues
at FLAR for helpful comments and Raul Razo-Garcia for research assistance.
The views expressed in this document, which has been reproduced without
formal editing, are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views
of the Organization.

United Nations Publication
ISSN printed version: 1564-4197
ISSN online version: 1680-8819
ISBN: 92-1-121616-8
LC/L.2621-P
Sales Nº.: E.06.II.G.145
Copyright © United Nations, November 2006. All rights reserved.
Printed in the United Nations, Santiago de Chile
Applications for the right to reproduce this work are welcomed and should be sent to the
Secretary of the Publications Board, United Nations Headquarters, New York, N.Y.
10017, U.S.A. Member States and their governmental institutions may reproduce this
work without prior authorization, but are requested to mention the source and inform the
United Nations of such reproduction.

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Contents

Abstract
........................................................................................5
1. Introduction ................................................................................7
2. What has Happened to Reserves? .....................................11
3. The Case for Country Insurance and Critiques...............13
4. Coincident and Uncorrelated Shocks................................17
5. Moral Hazard.............................................................................19
6. FLAR as a Financial Development Fund...........................23
7. Relationship to the IMF, World Bank and IDB .................29
8. Conclusion ................................................................................31
References ......................................................................................33
Serie Financiamiento del desarrollo:
números publicados ......................................................................45

3

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Abstract

The unprecedented accumulation of international reserves by
emerging markets raises the question of how to best utilize these funds; in
particular if they should be held as a war chest to guard against the risk of
financial crisis or if they should be used to recapitalize and strengthen weak
banking systems. A third issue is if the resource cost could be limited by
pooling the holdings of different central banks and if so, to what objectives
should this reserve pool be put. This paper considers these questions with
reference to the countries participating in the Latin American Reserve Fund
(FLAR). It explores two routes through which the pooling of reserves
through FLAR could enhance stability and welfare in Latin America. First,
the reserve pool could be used for emergency lending in response to sudden
stops. Insofar as the incidence of sudden stops differs across countries,
pooling would allow the same reserves to support a larger volume of
emergency lending. However, the paper discusses how such a scheme would
face significant obstacles due both to the bunching of sudden stops
temporally and regionally and to moral hazard problems which are stronger
in the case of self-regulating entities like FLAR. The second, more promising
alternative that the paper analyses, is the use of a portion of the reserve pool,
along with borrowed funds, to purchase contingent debt securities issued by
Latin American governments and corporations: domestic-currency inflationindexed bonds, GDP-indexed bonds, commodity-price-indexed bonds. This
would help to solve the coordination/first-mover problem that limits the
liquidity of markets in these instruments and hinders their acceptance by
private investors.
In any case, the idea is that neither initiative should be thought of in
stand-alone terms. In addition to creating an expanded reserve pool for use in
emergency lending, governments could also push ahead with issuing
contingent debt securities that reduce their vulnerability to disturbances.

5

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1. Introduction

The unprecedented accumulation of international reserves by
emerging markets raises the question of how to best utilize these funds.
Should they be held as a war chest to guard against the risk of financial
crisis? Or should they be used to recapitalize weak banking systems,
following the example of China? Could the resource cost be limited
by pooling the holdings of different central banks? If so, to what
objectives should this reserve pool be put? Should it be used as an
insurance fund to protect economies from the effects of capital account
crises? Rather than supplying financial assistance after the fact, might
it be used to build stronger national and regional financial systems and
encourage the introduction of contingent claims that limit the
susceptibility of emerging markets to financial crises? This paper
considers these questions with reference to the case of Latin America
and the Caribbean and, in particular, from the point of view of the
Andean countries participating in the Latin American Reserve Fund
(FLAR).
In actual fact, initiatives along these lines have been rather more
visible recently in Asia than in Latin America. In 1999 the ASEAN
countries agreed to create an Asian Surveillance Process (ASP) to
provide semi-annual surveillance reports to be reviewed at meetings of
ASEAN finance ministers every six months. The ASP can be thought
of as a mechanism through which the participating countries commit to
exchanging information and engaging in frank discussions of
economic and financial conditions, developing a peer review process
designed to enhance macroeconomic and financial stability in the
region, identifying early warning signs of the risk of financial crisis,
encouraging unilateral or collective action to avert such risks, and
7

Insurance underwriter or financial development fund: what role for reserve pooling in Latin America?

monitoring global economic and financial developments. This surveillance is a logical way of
anticipating risks to regional financial markets and identifying circumstances justifying the
activation of regional lender-of-last-resort facilities. In 2000, the ASEAN+3 countries took a
modest step in the direction of creating such facilities, establishing the Chiang Mai Initiative (CMI)
to provide liquidity support to countries experiencing short-run balance of payments problems. The
CMI describes a set of basic principles and procedures for expanding the pre-existing ASEAN
Swap Arrangement and creating a new network of bilateral swap arrangements.1 In August 2003
ASEAN+3 finance ministers then endorsed an Asian Bond Markets Initiative (ABMI) to foster an
active and liquid secondary market in local-currency bonds and develop the infrastructure needed
for the growth of local bond markets, by inter alia using official resources to create and fund an
Asian Regional Guarantee Facility to provide credit guarantees. And, at roughly the same time, the
Executives’ Meeting of East Asia-Pacific Central Banks (EMEAP) launched an Asian Bond Fund
(ABF) to catalyze the growth of local bond markets by allocating a portion of the reserves of
regional central banks to purchases of government and quasi-government securities.
Latin America has not seen equally ambitious initiatives, although the region does have a
considerable history of monetary and financial cooperation. The Economic Commission for Latin
America and the Caribbean (CEPAL) provides surveillance of regional macroeconomic and
financial developments. The Secretariat of the Andean Community (CAN) has coordinated
initiatives on macroeconomic harmonization, mainly on the basis of inflation and fiscal targets.
Recently those initiatives have been coordinated with other blocks like MERCOSUR and the
Central American Common Market, notably through the REDIMA initiative sponsored by the
European Union and organized by CEPAL. FLAR provides external financing to central banks to
support the balance of payments, provide emergency liquidity assistance, and facilitate restructuring
of public debt.2 In addition it has promoted, in coordination with CEPAL and CAN, the
development of a forum of officials from its member countries to discuss macroeconomic and
financial issues affecting the region on the basis of technical rather than political analysis. But these
initiatives have not been as ambitious and visible as their Asian counterparts.
Why not is an interesting question. For one thing, Latin American countries have not
accumulated quite the same extraordinary quantities of reserves as their Asian counterparts. (See
Figure 1.) For better or worse they have not relied on exports for demand as heavily as the
principal Asian countries, rendering them quicker to move away from undervalued exchange rates
based on dollar pegs. With their exchange rates floating (subject to some intervention), they have
not accumulated such massive reserves as a result of sterilization operations designed to keep their
currencies down. Now, with a growing number of Latin American countries running current
account surpluses and governments and central banks concerned to avoid excessive appreciation,
reserve accumulation may accelerate. So too then may discussions of how to deploy these
resources to productive ends.
The remainder of this paper assesses options for regional reserve pooling. It starts by
reviewing the accumulation of reserves by the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean. It
then analyzes two goals to which these resources might be directed: the provision of country
insurance and the creation of stronger financial systems and contingent financial claims that would
limit the region’s exposure to financial instability.
In both cases, answers to the question of whether regional reserve pooling would be effective
are complex. My own view is that an effort to use these resources to promote the development of

1

2

8

All the details of existing bilateral swap arrangements negotiated under this umbrella are not publicly known. Estimates of the
magnitude of the swaps available to the 13 participating countries are on the order of $35 billion. The first ten per cent can be drawn
automatically, while the remainder is subject to conditions.
Since 1978 for the five Andean countries (Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Perú and Venezuela) and subsequent for Costa Rica.

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financial markets and instruments conducive to effective risk sharing is more likely to be productive
than an attempt to provide coinsurance at the regional level.
An important issue is the relationship between these regional initiatives and the global
financial institutions: the International Monetary Fund and World Bank. Arguably, the Fund and
the Bank already seek to advance the same objectives that might figure in the objective function of
the operators of a regional reserve pool. This compels one to ask why a regional initiative might be
able to do so more effectively and how the activities of a regional fund should be coordinated with
those of the global financial institutions. In fact, this same issue has arisen in Asia, on whose
experience I draw in the penultimate section.

9

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2. What has happened to reserves?

The motivation for this analysis is the very considerable
accumulation of reserves by Latin American countries. This section
provides three perspectives on this development. A first perspective is
Figure 1 above, which shows the growth of reserves in dollar terms. A
second rather different perspective is Figure 2, which shows reserve
cover as a percentage of imports, short-term debt, and broad money. A
striking fact is that Latin America’s reserves have not risen
significantly relative to imports. Although reserves have risen, in other
words, the region’s commercial transactions have grown right along
with them.3 In contrast, Latin reserves have risen relative to short-term
external debt and the broadly-defined money supply. Reserves relative
to short-term debt can be thought as reflecting the authorities’ concern
with rollover risk, while reserves relative to broad money is commonly
taken as an indicator of reserve adequacy in the event of a financial
crisis, since it reflects the potential for resident-based capital flight
from the currency.4 These patterns thus suggest that recent reserve
accumulation is indicative of a demand for insurance against financial
shocks.
A third, complementary perspective is provided by the empirical
literature on the demand for reserves. Aizenman and Lee (2005)
contrast two explanations for reserve accumulation in the last ten

3

4

One possible implication is that the governments and central banks in Latin America and the Caribbean do not yet possess the
abundance of reserves necessary in order to be able to devote some fraction of them to a still unproven reserve-pooling arrangement.
But yet another possible implication is that the still-limited extent of reserves makes it all the more imperative that the region develop
more efficient ways of deploying its holdings.
See IMF (2003).

11

Insurance underwriter or financial development fund: what role for reserve pooling in Latin America?

years: “mercantilist motives” (the desire on the part of export-dependent economies to keep their
exchange rates low and exports competitive in the interest of growth) and “precautionary motives”
(the impulse to accumulate additional reserves as protection against the risk of financial crises).
They estimate the relative importance of these two influences using data for a panel of 53 advanced
and developing countries. In addition to the standard determinants of the demand for reserves
(population, per capita income, imports as a share of GDP, and exchange rate volatility calculated
from the monthly exchange rate against the U.S. dollar), they include proxies for mercantilist
motives (a three-year moving average of the rate of growth of real exports and a measure of real
undervaluation) and precautionary motives (dummy variables for the Mexican crisis and Asian
crisis, interacted with a dummy variable for emerging markets or alternatively with a dummy
variable for either just Asia or Latin America). Their basic finding is that both motives are
significant statistically but that precautionary factors have been more important economically. The
Mexican and Asian crises both ratcheted up emerging markets’ demand for international reserves.
While Asian demands responded only to the Asian crisis, Latin American demands ratcheted up
following both the Mexican crisis and its Asian successor.
A limitation is the special nature of the Aizenman-Lee sample, which includes only seven
LAC countries: Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Peru and Venezuela. In addition,
nearly half of their sample is made up of advanced economies whose behavior is different because
the extent of their foreign-currency denominated debt (which is minimal) and hence their
vulnerability to crises (which is correspondingly less). I therefore replicated Aizenman and Lee’s
analysis on an expanded sample of more than 150 countries, including all of the principal Latin
American and Caribbean economies. The results carry over: both mercantilist and precautionary
motives matter, but the precautionary motive continues to explain more of the variation in
countries’ accumulation of reserves. In LAC, there has been a noticeable increase in the demand
for reserves, holding constant income growth, openness and exchange rate variability, in response
to the Mexican and Asian financial crises.5
The logical conclusion to draw from these results is that Latin American and Asian countries
have been concerned to accumulate international reserves since the mid-1990s not just due to the
growth of their international transactions but also in response to the perceived rise in risk associated
with financial globalization. This in turn points to the question of whether a cooperative strategy
that involves reserve pooling might be the best means to these ends.

5

12

It is worth noting that Aizenman and Lee’s 1997-8 Asian-crisis dummy would of course be highly correlated with a 1998-9 Brazilian
crisis dummy, which could also help to explain LAC’s apparent sensitivity to this variable.

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3. The case for country insurance
and critiques

One way of more effectively mobilizing reserves would be by
pooling them through an organization like FLAR and using them for
coinsurance. One could think of insurance against terms-of-trade
shocks, capital-account shocks, global-growth shocks, and localgrowth shocks. The question of what to insure against should be based
on two criteria. First, if the shock occurs, it should have consequences
severe enough to justify the fixed costs of arranging the insurance.
People don’t take out insurance to protect themselves against the drycleaning costs of spilling soup on their tie; rather, they rely on
straightforward preventive measures like tucking a napkin under their
collar and, if a stain nonetheless occurs, they pay the cleaning costs out
of cash on hand. Second, the moral hazard associated with the
insurance should be limited. Otherwise the provision of insurance may
be actuarily infeasible or welfare reducing.
As alluded to in Section 2, the context for such proposals is the
problem of sudden stops and reversals in the direction of capital
flows.6 Sudden stops can destabilize financial systems and plunge
economies into recession. Recent studies suggest that the output costs
can exceed 5 per cent of GDP in the year following the onset of the

6

See Calvo (1998) and Calvo and Reinhart (1999). Operationalizing the concept of sudden stops is not straightforward, as we shall
see, which itself poses problems for the concept and operation of an insurance mechanism. Caballero and Panageas (2005) define
this event as an instance where external funding declines by at least 10 per cent.

13

Insurance underwriter or financial development fund: what role for reserve pooling in Latin America?

event.7 Thus, there is a rationale for insuring against sudden stops by holding international
reserves.8
Sudden stops also cluster in time. (See Figure 3).9 An interpretation of this (see e.g. Calvo,
Izquierdo, and Mejia 2004) is that they have to do with the behavior of global financial markets as
well as country policies. Some take this to mean that their incidence would be unlikely to increase
as a result of the provision of country insurance. Calvo (2005) takes the fact that growth recovers
quickly from sudden stops as further evidence that country policies are not at the root of this
phenomenon.10 He concludes that sudden stops and the frequency of financial crises in emerging
markets reflect inefficiencies in international financial markets.11 He therefore argues for the
creation of a global fund offering emergency financial assistance to countries suffering from sudden
stops.12 In the absence of a global fund, the insurance in question could be provided by a regional
pool of reserves administered by, inter alia, FLAR.
This proposal is allied to the classic lender-of-last-resort (LLR) argument that, in response to
a shock to confidence that undermines the liquidity of financial markets, the central bank should
discount financial claims at a penalty rate (in order to discourage discounting by entities not in
fundamental need of assistance). The difference here is that many of the external liabilities of Latin
American countries are denominated in foreign currencies. Hence the ability of a national central
bank to provide LLR services will be limited by its international reserves, a constraint that can be
relaxed by reserve pooling.
Even if the substantial negative effects of sudden stops justify investing in insurance, holding
substantial reserves continuously as protection from an infrequent event may still be costly and
inefficient.13 Reserves bear a lower rate of interest than less liquid investments. While it is
precisely this liquidity that makes them attractive as a form of insurance, the associated liquidity
premium makes them costly. If the event in question is not just infrequent but also affects different
countries at different times, then the costs of self-protection can be reduced by pooling reserves.
Intuitively, sudden stops are an unusual state. Self-insuring by holding non-state-contingent
financial claims on the rest of the world will therefore tend to be inefficient, rendering a reserve
pool on which countries draw only in certain states of the world efficiency enhancing.

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

Calvo et al. (2004) select episodes characterized by large output losses. Other authors analyzing a larger sample of sudden stops not
selected on this basis generally find smaller output effects, on the order of 1-2 per cent of GDP. See e.g. Edwards (2005).
This observation can be seen as an outgrowth of the original buffer-stock model of international reserves (Heller 1970), in which
countries hold reserves as a buffer against balance-of-payments shocks (although in the original model, developed for an era of
closed capital accounts), it was shocks to the current account (as captured by, inter alia, export variability) that motivated the reserveholding decision.
Figure 3 is based on the measure of sudden stops in Eichengreen, Gupta and Mody (2005). The blue bar is for Latin American and
Caribbean countries, the red bar for all emerging markets including LAC. Of course, a number of commentators suggest that these
data from the past may be an imperfect guide to the future insofar as improvements in the information and policy environments have
reduced the cross-country correlation of such events. See for example Byun and Oswald (2005). One would also draw rather
different implications for the covariance of shocks depending on the exact nature of the shock against which the regional reserve
pool was designed to insure. For example, even if sudden stops affect a variety of different Latin American countries
simultaneously, terms-of-trade shocks may have a lesser tendency to coincide: a shock to oil prices will be a positive shock to oil
exporters but a negative shock to oil importers, working to reduce covariance. Thus, how seriously one takes this objection depends
in addition on the precise nature of the shocks being insured against. I return to this below.
The v-shaped nature of the output response seems to be quite general, as I have found in my own empirical work on the subject
(Adalet and Eichengreen 2005).
Such as, for example, the herding behavior that can arise in an environment of asymmetric information, in conjunction with the
weakened incentive to incur the costs of acquiring complete information about borrowing countries when investors hold diversified
portfolios.
Calvo’s preferred variant of the mechanism would have the stabilization fund purchase the bonds of adversely-affected economies to
prevent their spreads from rising (Calvo 2002).
See Caballero and Panageas (2005). It is like those whose houses sit atop earthquake faults (such as the present author) warehousing
all the building materials and appliances needed to reconstruct his house in the event an earthquake strikes rather than simply
purchasing an insurance policy from a company better positioned to pool these risks. Lee (2004) parameterizes a simple model of
self-insurance and shows that full coverage (sufficient to fully offset the effects of the sudden stop) is suboptimal. I turn to
alternative, potentially more efficient insurance mechanisms, in Section 4 below.

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A number of questions can be raised about this argument. One is why countries cannot
contract for insurance commercially by establishing credit lines on international capital markets or
issuing securities with embedded options that have the same insurance properties. If the argument
for insurance is strong, then the private sector should be prepared to provide it for a fee. This
objection seems especially compelling in light of the explosive growth of international financial
markets and transactions. There has in fact been some experimentation with this practice, by inter
alia Argentina in the 1990s.14 But the Argentine credit line was small, and execution was delayed
until well into the crisis.
More generally, the question is why the practice is not more widespread. One possible
answer is that capital requirements and other regulations prevent potential suppliers from providing
insurance on the requisite scale. Commercial counterparties may also be worried about
concentrated country exposures and demand a prohibitively price for the provision of contingent
credit lines. Still, if the case for private insurance is strong, then financial markets and institutions
adept at diversifying and repackaging risks would presumably find a way around these obstacles.
Another possibility is adverse selection. If asymmetric information prevents commercial
insurers from discriminating among potential borrowers in different risk categories, then only
unusually risky countries will wish to contract for such lines. The higher the fees and interest rates
charged, the greater the riskiness of willing purchasers, causing the private market to collapse. The
limitation of this argument is that potential insurers are far from ignorant of variations in country
risk. Information is asymmetric, in other words, but not all that asymmetric, enabling lenders to
charge different rates to borrowers subject to different levels of country risk.
A related argument is that a public insurance agency may have greater ability or stronger
incentives to gather information on the financial condition of its clients, in turn enabling it to better
tailor incentive-compatible contracts. An objection here is that private financial institutions with
their own financial returns and performance at stake have at least as strong an incentive to invest in
these monitoring functions.
Yet another possibility is that commercial insurance providers have an incentive to take a
short position against the country when the probability rises that it will wish to draw down its credit
line. In turn this will destroy the effectiveness of the insurance (Broda and Levy-Yeyati 2003).
Presumably this problem does not carry over to public insurance providers. Of course, this problem
would be ameliorated if the insurance liability was securitized and widely distributed, since
diversification would then provide the insurers with the protection they need (obviating the need to
hedge on a large scale). But in turn this begs the question of why emerging markets find it hard to
place innovative securities containing put and call options that kick in when economic conditions
deteriorate, even calling for reverse payments. I return to this below.

14

The experiment in question involved a contingent repurchase contract between the Argentine central bank and a consortium of
foreign banks, under which the central bank was allowed to withdraw funds in the event of a crisis via a three-month renewable
credit line collateralized by dollar-denominated government bonds.

15

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4. Coincident and uncorrelated
shocks

A second question is whether bunching -- that multiple countries
experience sudden stops simultaneously – undermines the rationale for
reserve pooling. If most or all contributing countries need to draw on
the fund simultaneously because they experience shocks
simultaneously, then the advantages of reserve pooling disappear.
This will be true whether the simultaneity of shocks reflects global
factors affecting all countries similarly or whether it reflects contagion
spreading from one victim to another. The fact, documented by Glick
and Rose (1998), that financial contagion has a pronounced regional
element suggests that a regional reserve fund may be less effective
than global insurance extended through, inter alia, the International
Monetary Fund, since different regions are impacted differently and
the IMF spans the entire globe. This does not destroy the argument for
reserve pooling insofar as different countries may experience the shock
with different degrees of severity (allowing some of the reserves of
countries experiencing moderate effects to be lent to countries
suffering severe effects), but it weakens it.15
The importance of this is an empirical question. A variety of
approaches can be taken to identifying shocks to the balance of
payments, from naïve time series analysis to structural vector
autoregression to the simulation of multi-country macroeconomic
models. Here I take the relatively simple approach pioneered by
Dodsworth (1992) and Williams et al. (2001).

15

And/or insofar as a regional reserve fund may be in a relatively strong position to borrow additional resources on the markets.

17

Insurance underwriter or financial development fund: what role for reserve pooling in Latin America?

The first step is to compute the mean, standard deviation and coefficient of variation of the
international reserves of each of the six members of FLAR. Results for the period 1978-2005 are shown in
Table 1 (with means are expressed in millions of U.S. dollars.) The coverage ratio C can then be expressed
as follows under alternative assumptions of reserve pooling (ranging from zero pooling to full reserve
pooling).16
Ri + Σj≠I ρRj
Ci = Var(Ri + Σj≠I ρRj )
Ri is the total reserves of country i, and p is the degree of pooling, 0  p  1. With 0  p  1,
country i’s total access to reserves equals its own reserves plus the partially pooled reserves of the other
countries. Coverage ratios for the six members of FLAR are shown in Table 2. Evidently, some countries
like Venezuela and Ecuador are better off without pooling, while Bolivia, Costa Rica and Peru are all better
off when reserves are pooled. Colombia, in contrast, is unaffected. These results flow directly from
differences in the coefficients of variation in Table 1. Countries for which the level of reserves is high
relative to their volatility (Venezuela, Ecuador) do not benefit from pooling with countries with fewer and
more volatile reserves. For countries where reserves are relatively volatile and/or relatively smaller, the
opposite will tend to be true. The imperfect correlation of national reserve fluctuations does not appear to
have been pronounced enough to modify these direct effects.17
Following Williams et al., one can then compute the level of reserves that each country would have
to hold in an independent state in order to enjoy the level of coverage afforded by pooling. From equation
(1), we can obtain the hypothetical level of reserves HR that a country must hold in order to achieve a
coverage ratio Ci*, given its own historical reserve variability Ri.
HR = (Ci*)(Var Ri)
These figures are shown in Table 3. The results follow directly from Tables 1 and 2. We see that
Colombia’s reserves are basically unchanged. Bolivia and Peru would have to increase their reserves by
more than half in order to obtain the same benefits delivered by pooling, but on a stand-alone basis. Costa
Rica would have to increase its by a quarter. For Venezuela and Ecuador, the reduction in coverage under
pooling translates into a decline in effective reserves.
These exercises suggest that there may be a problem of incentive compatibility in getting lowvariability and high-variability countries within FLAR to pool a greater fraction of their reserves. The
imperfect correlation of reserve fluctuations across countries is not pronounced enough for countries whose
reserves are large relative to own-reserve volatility to benefit from pooling with neighbors whose reserves
are lower and/or whose volatility is higher. (See Table 4).
There are a number of reasons to hesitate before drawing over-strong conclusions from these results.
Historical relationships may not hold in the future. The Lucas Critique suggests that reserve volatility and
covariances could change as a result of the pooling arrangement. The fact that reserves in all the countries
concerned have been trended upward in recent years, together with economic growth and opening, will
tend to exaggerate their correlation.18 But the results here are at least a start.

16
17
18

18

The coverage ratio is of course simply the reciprocal of the coefficient of variation in the special case where p = 0.
In practice, the covariance of reserve fluctuations tends to be positive, not negative.
A start on attacking this problem is to regress each country’s reserves on a simple time trend and then to set the mean of detrended
reserves to the mean of actual reserves. Table 5 shows the resulting correlations; now the much lower correlation of detrended
reserves suggests more scope for pooling. Table 6 confirms that the resulting standard deviations and coefficients of variation are
smaller, while Table 7 confirms that more countries can gain from pooling if the detrended correlations are an accurate guide to the
future. The calculations in Table 7 now suggest that only Colombia loses from full pooling, and only marginally. Whether one
prefers the calculations in Table 3 or Table 7 as a guide to the prospective effects of reserve pooling hinges entirely, of course, on
whether one thinks that the raw or detrended data provide a better guide to the future correlation of reserve movements.

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5. Moral hazard

A third question is whether sudden stops are really not a
function of country policies. Empirical analyses of their incidence
from Calvo, Izquierdo, and Mejia (2004) to Edwards (2005) identify
roles for both internal and external factors. To quote Calvo (2005),
“econometric studies do not reject the hypothesis that Sudden Stops
are largely prompted by external factors but, at the same time, strongly
suggest that the probability of Sudden Stops reflects domestic
characteristics.” In other words, even analysts emphasizing the
importance of global factors acknowledge that domestic characteristics
shape the impact and response to external shocks. Insofar as the
relevant characteristics include policies under the control of the
domestic authorities, this means that moral hazard may arise.19
Moral hazard does not render insurance infeasible, but it
requires that a reasonable insurance scheme be designed to limit its
extent. The obvious way of doing so is through surveillance and
conditionality. Automobile insurers monitor the citations of their
policy holders: drivers with too many speeding tickets find their
premia raised and policies cancelled. Surveillance and ex ante
conditionality can similarly limit the tendency for macroeconomic
19

The extent and economic importance of moral hazard in this context is disputed; for a review of the evidence see Lane and Philips
(2000). There is also the possibility that, in the presence of other distortions, adding insurance will lead to less risk taking rather than
more. Thus, Cordella and Levy Yeyati (2004) show in a model of finite-lived governments where the probability of government
survival declines with a rising incidence of financial crises, that insurance that reduces the risk of financial collapse may in fact
encourage the authorities to invest more in policy reform (in the present context, to reduce the riskiness of their policies). Of course,
there are actually two effects of insurance here: insurance that reduces the likelihood of a crisis reduces the pressure on the
government to head it off, but that insurance also strengthens the incentive to pursue reforms that reduce the riskiness of the
environment in the future. Predictably, the net effect is ambiguous. Cordell and Levy Yeyati show that insurance is more likely to
encourage reforms that pay off in good times (since it reduces the risk of falling into a crisis in the first place) than reforms that
reduce the risk of a crisis in the event that one occurs.

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Insurance underwriter or financial development fund: what role for reserve pooling in Latin America?

policy makers and debt managers rendered overconfident by the existence of an insurance policy
from driving the economy recklessly.
Alternatively, automotive insurers may require the policy holder to take certain actions after
an accident as a condition for receiving assistance: the insured may be required to provide a police
report, permit his car to be inspected by an adjustor, and agree to be examined by a physician and to
accept his recommended course of treatment. In the same way, central banks acting as lenders of
last resort may require certain conditions to be met by financial institutions (for example, they may
require full access to the books or removal of management). Emergency financial assistance by the
IMF similarly comes with conditions attached.
A key question is whether such conditions are better applied ex post or ex ante. Should the
operator of the reserve pool, say FLAR, announce before the fact what countries are eligible for a
credit line in the event that they experience a sudden stop and specify the amount of assistance that
they can expect to receive? Or should it proceed on a case-by-case basis and decide whether or not
to provide additional credit once the sudden stop and the severity of the output decline have been
observed?
Those who argue for insurance against sudden stops generally favor ex-ante contracts. First,
the problems of illiquidity that arise when capital flows are interrupted can spiral into insolvency
unless funds are disbursed quickly. Extended deliberations are not feasible in this context; rather,
determining eligibility with the requisite speed requires that countries be deemed eligible for
assistance ex ante. Second, if the terms and amounts of external assistance are specified ex ante, the
government has a stronger incentive to take steps to expedite the economy’s recovery from the
sudden stop.
Cohen and Portes (2004) describe an insurance contract in which countries prequalify for
assistance if their debt ratios remain below some critical ceiling consistent with moderate spreads,
say 400 basis points above LIBOR. By assumption, any crisis that the country then experiences is a
crisis of liquidity, not a crisis of debt sustainability. Payments are triggered when spreads on the
debt rise above the threshold level. The IMF or regional reserve fund would then lend to the
country at the threshold spread. It would thus contain the effects of the sudden stop that caused
spreads to rise and prevent the liquidity crisis from degenerating into a solvency crisis. Calvo
(2002) offers a variant of the same class of proposals, in which his “Emerging Market Fund” would
purchase the bonds of fundamentally solvent countries adversely affected by a crisis elsewhere in
the world. Cordella and Levy Yeyati (2005) propose a country insurance facility that would
provide eligible countries with automatic access to a credit line at a predetermined interest rate,
where eligibility criteria would again focus on debt sustainability – not just the level of the debt but
also its maturity and currency composition. Dervis and Ozer (2005) similarly propose a Stability
and Growth Facility that would provide insurance against unforeseen shocks and for which
countries would prequalify on the basis of their policies.
Chami, Sharma and Shim (2004) lay out the analytics of this approach. They assume that the
insurer has two objectives: safeguarding its assets and providing for the borrowing country’s
welfare, which it can enhance by extending a loan. A governmental counterparty decides in each of
two periods how much unobserved effort to exert in order to avoid and then recover from a
financial crisis, which in turn affects how much will be asked to repay to the insurance pool.
In this model it is preferable for the insurer to specify eligibility for assistance and the terms
of the credit line – how much assistance the insured will receive as a function of the severity of the
decline in output that occurs in the first period – before the fact rather than deciding ex post whether
or not to extend a loan after the country enters the crisis but before the full output consequences,
which only develop in the second period, are known. There is moral hazard under either contract;
knowing that it stands to receive official support, the efforts of the national authorities to avert the
20

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crisis are correspondingly less. But the extent of the moral hazard affecting the authorities’ efforts
to recover from the crisis varies with the form of the contract. Under the ex-post contract, the crisis
country repays more if it makes a greater effort to recover, which works to depress adjustment
effort. In contrast, under the ex-ante contract, when terms are agreed prior the government’s
decision of how much adjustment effort to extend, repayment is independent of effort; hence
adjustment will be greater, and outcomes will be superior from all points of view. In general, an
insurer that both has a fiduciary responsibility to safeguard its assets and cares about the welfare of
the crisis country will prefer an ex ante contract in which the operator of the reserve pool specifies
who is eligible and the terms and amounts of the assistance that will be forthcoming.
But there is a problem of time consistency with the ex ante contract. The insurer may want to
renege on its fixed commitment if it observes that the recession is severe; since it values the welfare
of the insured, it may wish to offer more generous terms. Hence ex ante contracts in which the
amount and terms of the credit line are fixed will not be credible.20 And since the insured knows
this, moral hazard leading to less adjustment effort will still be a problem, surveillance and
conditionality or not.21
This suggests that an organization like FLAR operating a coinsurance mechanism may wish
to deem certain countries eligible for a fixed credit line, since this is better than a discretionary,
case-by-case approach at preserving its own financial solvency while at the same time supporting
the welfare of its members, but that the time consistency problem may undermine the feasibility of
this approach and aggravate moral hazard. And if moral hazard is serious, a coinsurance
arrangement may turn out to be welfare reducing rather than welfare improving for the group as a
whole.
At least three further questions can be raised about these ideas. First, is a regional entity like
FLAR well positioned to carry out surveillance and apply conditionality? Peer monitoring is costly
and subject to increasing returns; if scale economies are strong, there may be an argument for
centralizing it at a global institution like the IMF. In addition, monitoring and enforcement may
also be more effective when they are delegated to a global entity like the IMF that is better insulated
from political pressures emanating from a single region. It is well known that arrangements based
on peer monitoring (a FLAR-based coinsurance mechanism would be one involving regional peers)
tend to be lax in enforcement and thus to fall down at the monitoring stage, problems that can be
solved, at least in principle, by delegating these tasks to an outside entity.22
Second, doesn’t the unsatisfactory experience of the IMF’s contingent credit line (CCL), for
which no country applied prior to its elimination in 2003, raise questions about the enthusiasm of
LAC countries for ex ante coinsurance? Insofar as the funders of any regional facility would value
its solvency and those operating it would have an obligation to safeguard its assets, countries
running risky policies that would prevent them from paying back those credits would have to be
denied the privilege of borrowing. Countries might then be reluctant to apply insofar as this sent a
negative signal about their financial condition. Together with the fact that the outcome was
uncertain, since the application then had to be approved by the IMF’s Executive Board, this seems
to have been what deterred governments from applying for a CCL.23 A further problem was that
20
21

22

23

Note that Cohen and Portes, in the article referenced above, do not address the time consistency problem.
Theoretically, it is possible that this problem could be solved through repeated interaction between the insurer and the country,
through which the former develops a reputation for acting consistently. I return to this below.
Thus, DeMarzo, Fishman and Hagerty (2001) show that self-regulating organizations prefer fewer investigations for cheating and
lower penalties in the event of detection than organizations in which these functions are delegated to an outside body. It is
sometimes argued that the time consistency problem that obstructs efforts to enforce ex-ante insurance contracts can be solved by
repeated interaction between the insurer and the insured, as a result of which the insurer develops a reputation for behaving
consistently. The tendency toward forbearance evident in self-regulating organizations suggests that this bootstrap equilibrium may
be hard to sustain.
Since 1999 FLAR has also had a Contingent Credit Line (under Article 7d of its by-laws). As I understand it, it has finessed the
problems of potential slow disbursement and prequalification by delegating the decision of whether to extend this credit to the

21

Insurance underwriter or financial development fund: what role for reserve pooling in Latin America?

eligibility could be rescinded at some future date, sending a negative signal that might precipitate a
crisis.
FLAR could carry out its fiduciary responsibility by announcing unilaterally which member
countries were eligible for financial assistance. But it would then send a negative signal about the
financial condition of the other countries when it declared them ineligible for assistance. In turn
this might render countries reluctant to participate in the coinsurance arrangement in the first place.
And the exit problem would remain.24
Finally, such schemes tend to assume the ability of the agency operating the facility to
discriminate between solvent and insolvent countries, where the solvent countries are still
susceptible to liquidity crises and should thus be made automatic beneficiaries of the new facility.
Cohen and Portes (2004) assume the existence of a well-defined amount of debt that forms the
ceiling on sustainable levels. Cordella and Levy Yeyati (2005) argue that a ceiling should be
defined for the overall debt-GDP ratio but also recommend that foreign-currency debt and shortterm debt should receive heavier weights in the calculation of this total. They suggest imposing a
ceiling on the fiscal deficit in each of the preceding three years. Calvo (2002) similarly suggests
that his Emerging Market Fund would be able to efficiently discriminate between insolvent and
illiquid crisis countries.
Unfortunately, in the real world there is no well defined cutoff between sustainable and
unsustainable debts. Sustainability depends on forecasts of future growth rates and interest rates
that are disputable and uncertain. It depends on estimates of the political will of a government and
society to mobilize and transfer real resources for purposes of debt service. It thus seems
unavoidable that any coinsurance facility will occasionally lend to countries that turn out to be
insolvent and find it impossible to repay. Or it will not lend to countries whose problems are
liquidity related, leading to complaints and recrimination. Any automatic scheme that depends on
the existence of an operational distinction between insolvent and illiquid crisis countries is unlikely
to be feasible in practice.25

24

25

22

Executive President of the reserve fund, who can presumably act without delay in response to a capital account crisis. However, the
president’s fiduciary responsibility would still create the possibility that he would feel obligated to deny a request for a credit line
from a member country and that this decision would then exacerbate its crisis. (Alternatively, if requests for credits were granted
indiscriminately, the financial condition of the reserve pool might be threatened.) This danger may explain why only one country,
Columbia, has applied for credit through this facility.
Cordella and Levy Yeyati (2005) suggest “smoothing” the eligibility criteria so that exogenous shocks temporarily pushing a country
about the eligibility threshold do not precipitate a sudden jump in interest rates and/or a crisis. While this might help for small
exogenous shocks that the authorities wish to offset, it will not help for large exogenous shocks that cannot be offset in the medium
term.
This argument is developed and defended at greater length in Eichengreen (2002).

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6. FLAR as a financial development
fund

The idea that Latin American reserves might be pooled through
a regional entity like FLAR and used for coinsurance against sudden
stops has some appeal. To the extent that sudden stops are imperfectly
correlated across countries, pooling can be used to reduce the real
resource cost of reserve accumulation. To the extent that countries
suffering purely from problems of illiquidity can be identified, the
substantial costs of the financial instability induced by interruptions to
private capital flows can be avoided.
At the same time, there are significant obstacles to the successful
implementation of such a scheme. Identifying countries whose
financial problems are exclusively related to liquidity may be
straightforward in theory, but doing so is difficult in practice. Insofar
as such a fund also lends to countries with fundamental problems of
debt sustainability, either reserves will be squandered if loans are not
repaid or the financial burdens of the country will be heightened if
they are. The moral hazard associated with this insurance would
weaken crisis prevention and recovery effort unless it is married with
effective surveillance and conditionality. And self-regulating entities,
including insurance cooperatives, are prone to greater forbearance than
entities whose regulation is delegated to third parties, which raises
questions about the effectiveness of regional monitoring and
conditionality.

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Insurance underwriter or financial development fund: what role for reserve pooling in Latin America?

The alternative is to pool some fraction of the region’s reserves and use them to promote the
development of financial markets and instruments that enhance resiliency to capital-flow volatility.
The motivation here is two-fold: that the absence of deep and liquid markets in instruments whose
returns are negatively correlated with domestic economic conditions heightens financial fragility,
and that outside intervention is needed to get those markets up and running.
The idea that the absence of suitable instruments renders emerging markets vulnerable to
capital-flow volatility has been developed in the literatures on balance-sheet effects, de-facto
dollarization, and original sin. The literature on balance-sheet effects emphasizes that sudden stops
precipitating depreciation of the currency have strongly negative effects in emerging markets.
Negative effects arise because emerging markets are net foreign debtors and because their external
liabilities are disproportionately denominated in foreign currency.26 When the United States sees its
currency depreciate, the main effect is to crowd in exports and stabilize output, rather than causing
financial stringency.27 In emerging markets with foreign-currency-denominated liabilities, in
contrast, the main effect is to raise the costs of debt service and heighten financial distress.
The literature on de facto dollarization adds the tendency for just just foreign creditors but
also residents to denominate assets and liabilities in foreign currency. Net debtors will thus
experience difficulties when the currency depreciates, giving rise to financial distress that can
ramify. A series of studies has now documented the connection between de facto dollarization and
financial fragility. Calvo et al. (2004) show that more dollarized countries have a higher incidence
of sudden stops. Levy Yeyati (2004a) shows that banking crises following currency depreciation
are more frequent in countries with more dollarized banking systems. Domac and Martinez Peria
(2000) find that the incidence of systematic banking crises rises with the foreign-currencyliabilities-to-assets ratio of local banks. Berganza and Garcia Herrero (2004) show that sovereign
spreads rise more sharply following currency depreciation in more dollarized economies.
Finally, the literature on original sin emphasizes the obstacles facing emerging economies,
small ones in particular, seeking to issue domestic-currency-denominated state-contingent securities
whose returns co-vary negatively, or at least do not co-vary positively, with domestic economic
conditions.28 It is not as if policy makers and financial market participants are ignorant of the
potential for destabilizing balance-sheet effects, in other words. But emerging markets, small ones
in particular, find it either difficult (Williamson 2005) or impossible (Eichengreen and Hausmann
2005a) to issue significant quantities of instruments with more desirable cyclical properties. This
problem presumably reflects more than just inadequate anti-inflationary credibility: many emerging
markets have the same difficulty in issuing CPI-indexed domestic-currency bonds which would
insulate the country from the deterioration in the terms of trade that accompanies sudden stops
while at the same time protecting investors from the inflation tax.29
That this problem is particularly difficult to overcome in small countries is not a coincidence:
the demand and supply sides of the market must achieve a minimum efficient scale in order for a
significant volume of transactions to be sustained, something that is especially difficult in small
countries. Small numbers of investors and transactions make it hard for to buy and sell without
moving prices. Bid-ask spreads tend to be prohibitive in thin markets.
Thus, even if such countries have the capacity to issue innovative instruments with more
desirable cyclical properties, potential issuers and investors both may be deterred by the very high

26
27
28
29

24

For the literature on balance-sheet effects, see Cespedes, Chang and Velasco (2000).
This point is documented by Gagnon (2005).
See Eichengreen and Hausmann (2005a) for a compendium of research adopting this perspective.
The importance of such credibility problems can be questioned, now that inflation rates in virtually all FLAR countries (with the
exception of Venezuela) have converged to levels below 5 per cent. Of course, the issue is not so much current inflation as the
distribution of expectations of future inflation.

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up-front costs that must be incurred to jump-start the market.30 In this situation, outside
intervention through which a sufficient installed base of the relevant assets is created has generally
been needed to initiate activity. The market in Brady bonds, which was created by intervention by
the G-7 countries, is a case in point. More generally, Shiller (2004) has shown that markets in any
number of innovative financial assets with desirable risk-sharing properties developed only with the
help of official intervention; U.S. examples include mortgage-backed securities (whose advent
required the creation of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac) and TIPS (inflation-indexed treasury
securities, whose creation had wait on the intervention of the federal government). Another widelycited example is the addition of collective action clauses to the contracts governing bonds issued in
the United States, which was helped by a concerted push by the international policy community.
These observations provide the motivation for proposals that some fraction of the reserves of
Latin American countries be pooled through an entity like FLAR and used to relax the constraints
on the development of markets in financial instruments with desirable risk-sharing characteristics.
Inspiration can be drawn, as noted above, from the Asian Bond Fund in which EMEAP countries
allocated a portion of their reserves to a fund authorized to purchases government and quasigovernment securities – in the case of ABF-I foreign-currency-denominated securities, in the case
of ABF-II local-currency-denominated securities – and to create regional bond market indices.
These purchases are designed to widen the installed base and achieve critical mass of transactions,
while creation of the indices is designed to stimulate demand by institutional investors seeking to
track them.
In the Latin American context, observers have recommended a variety of steps to foster
markets in financial instruments with cyclical properties superior to foreign-currency-denominated
bonds. These include the aforementioned CPI-indexed domestic-currency bonds, payments on
which do not rise when the terms of trade deteriorate (Eichengreen and Hausmann 2005b). They
include GDP-indexed bonds, payments on which rise only when domestic incomes rise
(Borensztein and Mauro 2004).31 They include bonds indexed to the prices of one or more
commodities, Chilean bonds indexed to the price of copper being a favorite example (Caballero
2001).32
Investors should find these instruments attractive, assuming the existence of sufficiently
liquid markets. CPI-indexed bonds offer protection against inflation; in this respect they have the
same attractive characteristics as foreign-currency-denominated bonds.33 Since national growth
rates are imperfectly correlated, investors should be able to diversify away the idiosyncratic risk
associated with GDP-indexed bonds.34 For investors who do not wish to diversify, GDP-indexed
bonds would offer a way of taking a position on a country’s growth rate (acquiring an equity-like
exposure). Such bonds should exhibit lower default rates than plain-vanilla issues (since payments
rise only when national incomes rise), rendering them even more attractive to investors. The
idiosyncratic risk associated with commodity bonds may be more pronounced, but such bonds

30

31

32

33

34

This will especially be the case when the decision must be taken by potentially short-lived governments with understandably high
discount rates, which care more about the up-front costs than the deferred benefits.
This idea was also advanced by the U.S. President’s Council of Economic Advisors (2004) endorsed at the 2004 Summit of the
Americas.
These bonds could be indexed to the price of copper or include a put option that kicks when that price falls to a specified threshold
level. There are also arguments for even more innovative instruments such as long-term GDP growth swaps, which might be
arranged as parallel (back-to-back) loan agreements indexed to the participating countries’ GDPs (Shiller 2004).
And there is no particular reason to expect a secular deterioration in the terms of trade of the issuer. A cyclical deterioration owing
to, inter alia, a sudden stop is a different story, of course, but to the extent that such a terms of trade movement is presumably
temporary, investors should not be deterred. And to the extent that such instruments have better risk-sharing characteristics (the
share of real income that must go
to make payments does not rise when the terms of trade deteriorate and hence real incomes fall), default rates are likely to be lower,
rendering the instrument more attractive still.
This is an admittedly controversial point, to which I return below.

25

Insurance underwriter or financial development fund: what role for reserve pooling in Latin America?

should be attractive to, inter alia, corporates that are users of the commodities in question (since
interest income will then rise with the cost of the commodity).35
To be sure, CPI and GDP statistics are subject to revision and, potentially, manipulation.
This last problem can be solved, or at least ameliorated, by delegating to third parties the
responsibility of estimating GDP. Thus, when Bulgaria issued GDP warrants in 1994, it specified
that the World Bank should compile the relevant GDP statistics.36 The manipulability of GDP
statistics did not prevent Argentina from including GDP warrants in the menu of options in its
recent debt restructuring.37 To the extent that a country’s growth rate (unlike commodity prices,
which tend to be determined on world markets) is a function of its policies, there is a moral hazard,
but it is hard to imagine a country that would want to grow more slowly simply in order to limit its
debt service.
The most plausible explanation for lack of wider acceptance of such instruments is that there
does not exist an adequate installed base, limiting liquidity. Someone has to go first in order to
create a liquid market, and no one is willing to go first in the absence of adequate liquidity. The
more other countries issue GDP-indexed bonds, the greater the demand for the GDP-index bonds of
the next country from investors seeking to create a diversified potfolio of such instruments.
Creating a market therefore requires solving a coordination problem – getting everyone to move
together.38 This is the conundrum that the Asian Bond Fund is designed to address in another
regional context.
The simplest approach to this problem is that of U.S. Council of Economic Advisors
(2004), which suggests that multilateral financial institutions like the World Bank and
Interamerican Development Bank could consider initially purchasing a portion of the newly-issued
bonds to guarantee a minimum size for the market.39 FLAR could similarly devote a portion of its
portfolio to purchases of these financial instruments, thereby following in the footsteps of the
ABF.40 Caballero (2003) suggests that this initiative might be supplemented by creating a CDO
(Collateralized Debt Obligation) structure. The CDO would purchase a diversified portfolio of
emerging market contingent bonds and use these to back its own issues. The senior tranches of
those issues would absorb the contingency risk but not the default risk associated with the
underlying securities and thus be attractive to a wide range of nonspecialist investors lacking
detailed information on country risk. The junior (mezzanine) tranches would appeal to specialist
investors prepared to assume country risk or could be held by FLAR itself.
Would doing so be consistent with FLAR’s fiduciary responsibilities? Currently, FLAR’s
Board of Directors requires the institution to invest exclusively in investment-grade securities.
According to FLAR (2004), the institution’s self-managed portfolio is fully hedged against the U.S.
dollar, again by mandate from the Board. In addition, all positions taken by external fund managers
contracted by FLAR to manage portions of its portfolio are denominated in U.S. dollars. Thus, for
FLAR to purchase local-currency-denominated debt instruments, the Board would have to agree to
a change in mandate and practice. Preceding arguments about how international investors should
35

36

37

38

39
40

26

Thus, Mexico has been able to issue bonds indexed to oil prices, although it has had to pay a novelty/liquidity premium. A number
of private Chilean firms have issued bonds indexed to the price of copper.
Unfortunately, it did not specify whether the Bank should compile statistics on GDP at factor costs or market prices – or even specify
whether the relevant clause referred to nominal or real GDP, a problem that would presumably be addressed in future issues.
Costa Rica and Bosnia-Herzegovina also issued bonds including GDP warrants or indexation clauses as part of their Brady
restructurings.
In addition, there is the tendency for investment professionals to under-invest in designing innovative financial instruments insofar as
new securities are easily emulated, rendering returns difficult to capture (Allen and Gale 1994, Athanasoulis, Shiller and van
Wincoop 1999).
U.S. Council of Economic Advisors (2004), p.8.
Since FLAR tends to be a buy-and-hold investor it is not clear whether this would contribute significantly to market liquidity. This is
the same knock that has been made against the ABF. Moreover, if the constraint on market growth is the absence of a risk-free
benchmark security, simply adding to the demand for risky securities would not eliminate the problem.

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find these instruments attractive given the development of adequate market liquidity suggests that a
limited move in this direction would be consistent with directors’ fiduciary responsibilities.
Even if it is concluded that such purchases would be a responsible use of FLAR’s resources,
they would produce the desired result only if undertaken in conjunction with other initiatives.
FLAR, the World Bank, or another outside entity would have to be designated as the source of the
economic statistics to which interest payments are indexed. Bond market indices would have to be
created to stimulate the demand by investment funds and other institutional investors.
Eichengreen and Hausmann (2005b) recommend that the World Bank and Interamerican
Development Bank borrow as well as lend by issuing inflation-indexed local-currency bonds.
Because the IFIs are AAA rated, claims on the World Bank and IDB would be more attractive than
similarly denominated claims on residents. Their issues would provide a convenient asset for
pension funds required by their mandates to hold investment grade assets and previously forced to
purchase foreign securities in order to obtain them. They would provide a convenient benchmark
off of which to price riskier placements. By bundling issues denominated in different currencies
into a composite, the IFIs can make it attractive for foreign investors concerned with transaction and
management costs to add these securities to their portfolios. By creating an EM index, they can
create a demand on the part of institutional investors to track them. These transactions would be
free of currency risk for the IFIs insofar as they matched their borrowing in Latin American
currencies with loans in those same currencies. The World Bank has engaged in some
experimentation with this approach, for example issuing a Colombian peso CPI-indexed bond in
2004. A few months later the IDB issued a Eurobond in Brazilian reais with similar motivation.
This approach could be emulated by FLAR. In 2003 the organization issued medium-term
notes that traded at a price equivalent to 15 basis points over LIBOR.41 FLAR (2004) describes an
effort underway to issue additional medium-term notes via the private placement market, as noted
above. Those notes could be denominated in local currency and indexed for inflation as a way of
helping to build a customer base for local currency bonds. In order to have the effect of helping to
introduce a benchmark (risk-free) asset, that borrowing could not however exceed levels consistent
with the maintenance of FLAR’s investment grade rating.
A potential objection to such proposals is that the same clustering of shocks that reduces the
attractiveness of regional coinsurance may reduce the attractiveness of these contingent claims. If
growth rates in different Latin American and Caribbean countries all move together, owing to
common exposure to global shocks, then returns on their GDP-indexed financial obligations will
similarly tend move together, limiting the diversification benefits to investors and making it
difficult for these countries as a group to all place significant quantities of these claims with the
markets.
This objection is likely to apply more powerfully to some financial claims than to others. In
any case, the question is not whether the returns on such obligations tend to move together but
whether they tend to move together more or less than traditional instruments denominated in foreign
currency, which LAC countries already succeed in placing with international investors.
Eichengreen and Hausmann (2005b) use historical data to compare volatility vis-à-vis the dollar of
two inflation-adjusted baskets of emerging market currencies, showing that these are less volatile
than both the yen and the deutschemark. This can be thought of a mimicking the returns on a
basket of inflation-indexed emerging-market securities. The relatively low volatility of the basket
reflects the extent to which movements in real exchange rates (nominal exchange rates adjusted for
inflation) are less than perfectly correlated across countries.42 To the extent that interruptions to
41
42

According to the latest information I have these notes account for about a third of FLAR’s total liabilities.
Eichengreen and Hausmann note that while the coincidence of sudden stops may tend to increase the covariance and volatility of
returns, the tendency for terms-of-trade shocks affecting different emerging markets to offset (a shock to oil prices will be a positive
shock to oil exporters but a negative shock to oil importers) works to reduce covariance and volatility. Thus, the attractiveness to

27

Insurance underwriter or financial development fund: what role for reserve pooling in Latin America?

debt service will be less when inflation-indexed domestic-currency instruments are substituted for
foreign-currency debt, since debt service will then be better insulated from terms-of-trade shocks,
such a basket would be even more attractive to international investors relative to the alternative of
dollar- (and euro- and yen-) denominated bonds.
In sum, FLAR could contribute to financial stability in its member countries by using some
portion of its reserve pool to invest in their issuance of state-contingent debt securities with
desirable risk-sharing properties. But such an initiative will be effective only if it is complemented
by efforts to develop a regional index of such securities, by the creation of a CDO structure, and by
other steps to further develop the market.43

43

28

investors of a basket of domestic-currency-denominated inflation-indexed emerging market bonds reflects the fact that returns
incorporate the effects of both types of shocks and not just the effects of sudden stops.
In addition, Levy Yeyati (2004b) argues that the official development banks should lend in local currencies, thereby enhancing the
liquidity of markets in domestic-currency-denominated debt and creating a risk-free domestic-currency benchmark off of which
domestic credits can be more easily priced. But it is hard to see how this idea could be carried over to FLAR, insofar as the latter
specializes in emergency lending, which is necessarily denominated in foreign currency.

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7. Relationship to the IMF, World
Bank and IDB

There are a number of arguments for why these initiatives
should be coordinated with the activities of the IMF, World Bank, and
IDB. In the case of emergency lending, there is the fact that more
lending by FLAR will not increase the resources available to a crisis
country if it just reduces IMF lending dollar for dollar. Additionality
would remain if the increase in FLAR lending exceeded the IMF’s
overall willingness to lend, but cannot be assumed. Thus, for reserve
pooling designed to enhance the provision of country insurance to
succeed in providing improved protection against sudden stops, there
would have to be a consensus among the directors of FLAR and the
Executive Directors of the IMF on the desirability of a greater volume
of emergency financing.
In addition, there are compelling arguments for why
responsibility for surveillance and conditionality should be delegated
to an entity outside the region, such as the IMF, that is better capable
of following time-consistent policies. In addition, there is the obvious
fact that two last-resort lenders, the IMF and FLAR, could not
independently attach conditions to their lending, since the policy
implications could be contradictory and incompatible. It is revealing
that Asian countries, in negotiating the Chiang Mai Initiative of swap
lines and credits, agreed that initial disbursement could occur only in
conjunction with an IMF program and should be subject to IMF
conditionality.

29

Insurance underwriter or financial development fund: what role for reserve pooling in Latin America?

Similar arguments can be made in favor of coordinating the investment of FLAR funds to
promote the liquidity of markets in innovative local-currency financial instruments with the
financial-development initiatives of the IFIs. The risks associated with taking positions in these
markets can be spread between the World Bank, the IDB and FLAR if they all borrow and lend in
these markets and using these instruments. More fundamentally, financial market development
requires not just willingness on the part of a few large players to take positions in the relevant
instruments but also the development of efficient market infrastructure to encourage continuing
transactions. Here the IFIs are already involved, the World Bank through the provision of technical
assistance, the IMF and World Bank through their joint Financial Sector Assessment Programs, and
the IDB through its network of researchers engaged in the study of local bond markets. Ideally,
FLAR’s portfolio allocation decisions should be tailored to lever up these same infrastructurebuilding efforts and thus should be closely coordinated with them.
The conclusion that a regional coinsurance or financial-development initiative funded by
pooling international reserves should be coordinated with the emergency-lending and financialdevelopment efforts of the global institutions will disappoint those who might have hoped that by
mobilizing their reserves more efficiently Latin American countries could free themselves on
dependence on the IFIs. Such hopes were similarly disappointed in Asia. In practice, there is no
alternative to continued close coordination with the IFIs.

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8. Conclusion

This paper has explored two routes through which the pooling of
reserves through FLAR could enhance stability and welfare in Latin
America. First, the reserve pool could be used for emergency lending in
response to sudden stops. Insofar as the incidence of sudden stops differs
across countries, pooling would allow the same reserves to support a larger
volume of emergency lending.44 This image has considerable appeal.
Practically speaking, however, such a scheme would have to surmount
significant obstacles. Sudden stops may be imperfectly correlated across
countries, but they also have a pronounced regional element. They bunch
temporally and regionally, and the literature on contagion gives good
reasons to think that this will remain the case. The greater the bunching, the
less the advantages of pooling. Emergency lending also creates a moral
hazard that weakens crisis prevention and recovery efforts – especially
when the insurer values the welfare of the insured, creating time consistency
problems for ex ante contracts. Surveillance and conditionality address this
problem, but they work imperfectly. Compared to agencies subject to
independent regulation, self-regulating entities like FLAR also show a
greater tendency toward forbearance, which is likely to further aggravate
moral hazard. Knowing that this reduces the probability of repayment,
governments may reasonably be reluctant to commit a significantly
increased share of their hard-earned international reserves to the regional
pool. Finally, it is not realistic to assume that FLAR can unambiguously
determine whether a country is experiencing a crisis of insolvency or
illiquidity. Knowing that there is a nonnegligible risk that it might deploy
their resources on the basis of erroneous assumptions, governments and
central banks might be even more reluctant to contribute to the pool.
44

Or for fewer real resources to be devoted to underwriting the same amount of emergency lending.

31

Insurance underwriter or financial development fund: what role for reserve pooling in Latin America?

A more promising route would be to use a portion of the reserve pool, along with borrowed
funds, to purchase contingent debt securities issued by Latin American governments and
corporations: domestic-currency inflation-indexed bonds, GDP-indexed bonds, commodity-priceindexed bonds. This would help to solve the coordination/first-mover problem that limits the
liquidity of markets in these instruments and hinders their acceptance by private investors.
Neither initiative should be thought of in stand-alone terms. An expanded emergency
lending facility should be complemented by stronger regional surveillance and national policy
reform. Similarly, there is no reason why, in addition to creating an expanded reserve pool for use
in emergency lending, governments could not also push ahead with issuing contingent debt
securities that reduce their vulnerability to disturbances. Finally, there is a convincing case for
coordinating such initiatives with the global financial institutions. If emergency lending is not
coordinated, there is a danger that an additional dollar of FLAR money will simply be offset by one
less dollar of IMF money. Analogously, the World Bank and IDB can complement FLAR’s efforts
to develop the market in local-currency-denominated contingent securities because they can issue as
well as purchase claims denominated in those currencies and because their credit rating is AAA.
Working together would enable FLAR and the IFI’s to maximize their impact. Working separately
would be an opportunity missed.

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35

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Anex

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Tables
Table 1

RESERVE VARIABILITY, 1978-2005
Country

Mean Reserves

Standard Deviation

Bolivia

462.78

387.31

0.84

6 621.39

3 684.68

0.56

889.03

582.96

0.66

Ecuador

1 005.30

503.08

0.50

Peru

5 049.93

4 453.21

0.86

Venezuela

9 739.91

4 436.65

0.46

Colombia
Costa Rica

Coefficient of Variation Reserves

Table 2

COVERAGE RATIOS, 1978-2005
Country

ρ =0.0

ρ =0.1

ρ =0.2

ρ =0.3

ρ =0.4

ρ =0.5

ρ =0.6

ρ =0.7

ρ =0.8

ρ =0.9

ρ =1.0

Bolivia

1.19

1.72

1.78

1.80

1.81

1.82

1.83

1.83

1.83

1.83

1.84

Columbia

1.80

1.83

1.84

1.84

1.84

1.84

1.84

1.84

1.84

1.84

1.84

Costa Rica

1.53

1.78

1.82

1.82

1.82

1.83

1.83

1.83

1.83

1.83

1.84

Ecuador

2.00

2.00

1.89

1.89

1.88

1.86

1.85

1.84

1.84

1.84

1.84

Peru

1.16

1.34

1.55

1.55

1.62

1.68

1.72

1.76

1.79

1.81

1.84

Venezuela

2.20

2.14

2.04

2.04

2.00

1.96

1.93

1.90

1.88

1.85

1.84

Table 3

HYPOTHETICAL RESERVES, 1978-2005
Country
Bolivia
Columbia

ρ =0.0

ρ =0.1

ρ =0.2

ρ =0.3

ρ =0.4

ρ =0.5

ρ =0.6

ρ =0.7

ρ =0.8

ρ =0.9

ρ =1.0

462.8

667.7

689.9

698.2

702.6

705.3

707.1

708.4

709.4

710.2

710.8

6 621.4

6 728.6

6 771.2

6 787.0

6 790.9

6 789.1

6 784.8

6 779.3

6 773.5

6 767.7

6 762.0
1 069.8

889.0

1 035.8

1 053.8

1 060.4

1 063.7

1 065.8

1 067.1

1 068.1

1 068.8

1 069.4

Ecuador

1 005.3

1 007.6

970.7

953.3

943.4

937.0

932.6

929.3

926.8

924.8

923.2

Peru

5 049.9

5 818.9

6 359.1

6 756.6

7 060.0

7 298.7

7 490.9

7 648.9

7 780.9

7 892.8

7 988.9

Venezuela

9 739.9

9 515.7

9 281.4

9 065.1

8 873.7

8 706.9

8 562.0

8 435.7

8 325.2

8 228.0

8 142.0

Costa Rica

Table 4

CORRELATION OF INTERNATIONAL RESERVES, 1978-2005
Bolivia
Bolivia

Colombia

Costa Rica

Ecuador

Peru

Venezuela

1.0000

Colombia

0.8313

1.0000

Costa Rica

0.8193

0.9064

Ecuador

0.7146

0.6320

0.5111

Peru

0.9537

0.9248

0.8775

0.7215

1.0000

Venezuela

0.7708

0.7733

0.7979

0.5210

0.7856

1.0000
1.0000
1.0000

39

Insurance underwriter or financial development fund: what role for reserve pooling in Latin America?

Table 5

CORRELATION OF INTERNATIONAL RESERVES, 1978-2005
Bolivia

Colombia

Costa Rica

Ecuador

Peru

Bolivia
Colombia

0.3338

1.0000

Costa Rica

0.1165

0.3375

1.0000

Ecuador

0.5585

0.3819

-0.0660

1.0000

Peru

0.8413

0.6167

0.1588

0.6166

1.0000

Venezuela

0.4728

0.4577

0.6301

0.2297

Venezuela

1.0000

0.4970

1.0000

Table 6

RESERVE VARIABILITY, 1978-2005
(detrended reserves)
Mean Reserves
Bolivia

Standard
Deviation

Coefficient of
Variation Reserves

462.78

Costa Rica

213.76

0.46

6 621.39

Colombia

1 598.25

0.24

889.03

160.82

0.18

Ecuador

1 005.30

420.95

0.42

Peru

5 049.93

1 964.52

0.39

Venezuela

9 739.91

3 163.15

0.32

Table 7

COVERAGE RATIOS, 1978-2005
(detrended reserves)
0.0

0.1

0.2

0.3

0.4

0.5

0.6

0.7

0.8

0.9

1.0

Bolivia

Country

2.16

3.74

3.87

3.91

3.93

3.94

3.94

3.95

3.95

3.95

3.96

Colombia

4.14

4.31

4.32

4.28

4.23

4.17

4.12

4.07

4.03

3.99

3.96

Costa Rica

5.53

4.64

4.30

4.17

4.09

4.05

4.02

4.00

3.98

3.97

3.96

Ecuador

2.39

3.82

3.96

3.98

3.98

3.97

3.97

3.97

3.96

3.96

3.96

Peru

2.57

3.02

3.31

3.51

3.64

3.73

3.80

3.86

3.90

3.93

3.96

Venezuela

3.08

3.30

3.47

3.60

3.70

3.77

3.83

3.88

3.91

3.94

3.96

40

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N° 186

Figures
Figure 1

THE STOCK OF GLOBAL RESERVES, 1970-2005
4000

Emerging economies in Asia

Emerging economies excluding Asia

Total reserves (billions of US dollars)

Industrial countries

3500

3000

2500

2000

1500

1000

500

0

1970

1975

1980

1985

1990

1995

2000

2005

Source: IMF, International Financial Statistics.

41

Insurance underwriter or financial development fund: what role for reserve pooling in Latin America?

Figure 2

Latin America

Other
7
6
5
4
3
2
1

Asia

Latin America

04

03

02

01

99
20
00

98

97

96

95

94

93

92

91

19
90

0

Reserves to Short-Term Debt

Asia

Other

0.7
0.6
0.5
0.4
0.3
0.2
0.1

Reserves to Imports

0.8

04

03

02

99
20
00
01

98

Latin America

Other

04

03

02

99
20
00
01

98

97

96

95

94

93

92

91

19
90

0.5
0.5
0.4
0.4
0.3
0.3
0.2
0.2
0.1
0.1
0.0

Reserves to M2

Asia

97

96

95

94

93

92

91

19
90

0.0

Source: International Financial Statistics and World Development Indicators.

42

CEPAL - SERIE Financiamiento del desarrollo

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Figure 3

Probability of a Sudden Stop

35
30
25
20
15
10
5

Latin American and Caribbean

2001
2002

1999
2000

1996
1997
1998

1994
1995

1992
1993

1990
1991

1988
1989

1985
1986
1987

1983
1984

1981
1982

0

Emerging markets

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Serie
financiamiento del desarrollo

N° 186

.

Issues published:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.

17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
22.
23.
24.
25.
26.
27.
28.
29.

Regulación y supervisión de la banca en la experiencia de liberalización financiera en Chile (1974-1988), Günther
Held y Raquel Szalachman (LC/L.522), 1989.
Ahorro e inversión bajo restricción externa y focal. El caso de Chile 1982-1987, Nicolás Eyzaguirre (LC/L.526), 1989.
Los determinantes del ahorro en México, Ariel Buira (LC/L.549), 1990.
Ahorro y sistemas financieros: experiencia de América Latina. Resumen y conclusiones, Seminario (LC/L.553), 1990.
La cooperación regional en los campos financiero y monetario, L. Felipe Jiménez (LC/L.603), 1990.
Regulación del sistema financiero y reforma del sistema de pensiones: experiencias de América Latina, Seminario
(LC/L.609), 1991.
El Leasing como instrumento para facilitar el financiamiento de la inversión en la pequeña y mediana empresa de
América Latina, José Antonio Rojas (LC/L.652), 1991.
Regulación y supervisión de la banca e instituciones financieras, Seminario (LC/L.655), 1991.
Sistemas de pensiones de América Latina. Diagnóstico y alternativas de reforma, Seminario (LC/L.656), 1991.
¿Existe aún una crisis de deuda Latinoamericana?, Stephany Griffith-Jones (LC/L.664), 1991.
La influencia de las variables financieras sobre las exportaciones bajo un régimen de racionamiento de crédito:
una aproximación teórica y su aplicación al caso chileno, Solange Bernstein y Jaime Campos (LC/L.721), 1992.
Las monedas comunes y la creación de liquidez regional, L. Felipe Jiménez y Raquel Szalachman (LC/L.724), 1992.
Análisis estadístico de los determinantes del ahorro en países de América Latina. Recomendaciones de política,
Andras Uthoff (LC/L.755), 1993.
Regulación, supervisión y desarrollo del mercado de valores, Hugo Lavados y María Victoria Castillo (LC/L.768),
1993.
Empresas de menor tamaño relativo: algunas características del caso brasileño, Cézar Manoel de Medeiros
(LC/L.833), 1994.
El acceso de las pequeñas y medianas empresas al financiamiento y el programa nacional de apoyo a la PYME
del Gobierno chileno: balance preliminar de una experiencia, Enrique Román González y José Antonio Rojas
Bustos (LC/L.834), 1994.
La experiencia en el financiamiento de la pequeña y mediana empresa en Costa Rica, A.R. Camacho (LC/L.835), 1994.
Acceso a los mercados internacionales de capital y desarrollo de instrumentos financieros: el caso de México,
Efraín Caro Razú (LC/L.843), 1994.
Fondos de pensiones y desarrollo del mercado de capitales en Chile: 1980-1993, Patricio Arrau Pons (LC/L.839), 1994.
Situación y perspectivas de desarrollo del mercado de valores del Ecuador, Edison Ortíz-Durán (LC/L.830), 1994.
Integración de las Bolsas de valores en Centroamérica, Edgar Balsells (LC/L.856), 1994.
La reanudación de las corrientes privadas de capital hacia América Latina: el papel de los inversionistas
norteamericanos, Roy Culpeper (LC/L.853), 1994.
Movimientos de capitales, estrategia exportadora y estabilidad macroeconómica en Chile, Manuel Agosín y
Ricardo Ffrench-Davis (LC/L.854), 1994.
Corrientes de fondos privados europeos hacia América Latina: hechos y planteamientos, Stephany Griffith-Jones
(LC/L.855), 1994.
El movimiento de capitales en la Argentina, José María Fanelli y José Luis Machinea (LC/L.857), 1994.
Repunte de los flujos de capital y el desarrollo: implicaciones para las políticas económicas, Robert Devlin,
Ricardo Ffrench-Davis y Stephany Griffith-Jones (LC/L.859), 1994.
Flujos de capital: el caso de México, José Angel Guirría Treviño (LC/L.861), 1994.
El financiamiento Latinoamericano en los mercados de capital de Japón, Punam Chuhan y Kwang W. Ju
(LC/L.862), 1994.
Reforma a los sistemas de pensiones en América Latina y el Caribe, Andras Uthoff (LC/L.879), 1995.

45

Insurance underwriter or financial development fund: what role for reserve pooling in Latin America?

30.
31.
32.
33.
34.
35.
36.
37.
38.
39.
40.
41.
42.
43.
44.
45.
46.
47.
48.
49.
50.
51.
52.
53.
54.
55.

Acumulación de reservas internacionales: sus causas efectos en el caso de Colombia, Roberto Steiner y Andrés
Escobar (LC/L.901), 1995.
Financiamiento de las unidades económicas de pequeña escala en Ecuador, José Lanusse, Roberto Hidalgo y
Soledad Córdova (LC/L.903), 1995.
Acceso de la pequeña y microempresa al sistema financiero en Bolivia: situación actual y perspectivas, Roberto
Casanovas y Jorge Mc Lean (LC/L.907), 1995.
Private international capital flows to Brazil, Dionisio Dias Carneiro y Marcio G.P. Gracía (LC/L.909), 1995.
Políticas de financiamiento de las empresas de menor tamaño: experiencias recientes en América Latina, Günther
Held (LC/L.911), 1995.
Flujos financieros internacionales privados de capital a Costa Rica, Juan Rafael Vargas (LC/L.914), 1995.
Distribución del ingreso, asignación de recursos y shocks macroeconómicos. Un modelo de equilibrio general
computado para la Argentina en 1993, Omar Chisari y Carlos Romero (LC/L.940), 1996.
Operación de conglomerados financieros en Chile: una propuesta, Cristián Larraín (LC/L.949), 1996.
Efectos de los shocks macroeconómicos y de las políticas de ajuste sobre la distribución del ingreso en Colombia,
Eduardo Lora y Cristina Fernández (LC/L.965), 1996.
Nota sobre el aumento del ahorro nacional en Chile, 1980-1994, Patricio Arrau Pons (LC/L.984), 1996.
Flujos de capital externo en América Latina y el Caribe: experiencias y políticas en los noventa, Günther Held y
Raquel Szalachman (LC/L.1002), 1997.
Surgimiento y desarrollo de los grupos financieros en México, Angel Palomino Hasbach (LC/L.1003), 1997.
Costa Rica: una revisión de las políticas de vivienda aplicadas a partir de 1986, Miguel Gutiérrez Saxe y Ana
Jimena Vargas Cullel (LC/L.1004), 1997.
Choques, respostas de politica económica e distribucao de renda no Brasil, André Urani, Ajax Moreira y Luis
Daniel Willcox (LC/L.1005), 1997.
Distribución del ingreso, shocks y políticas macroeconómicas, L. Felipe Jiménez (LC/L.1006), 1997.
Pension Reforms in Central and Eastern Europe: Necessity, approaches and open questions, Robert Hollzmann
(LC/L.1007), 1997.
Financiamiento de la vivienda de estratos de ingresos medios y bajos: la experiencia chilena, Sergio Almarza
Alamos (LC/L.1008), 1997.
La reforma a la seguridad social en salud de Colombia y la teoría de la competencia regulada, Mauricio Restrepo
Trujillo (LC/L.1009), 1997.
On Economic Benefits and Fiscal Requirements of Moving from Unfunded to Funded Pensions, Robert
Hollzmann (LC/L.1012), 1997.
Eficiencia y equidad en el sistema de salud chileno, Osvaldo Larrañaga (LC/L.1030), 1997. www
La competencia manejada y reformas para el sector salud de Chile, Cristián Aedo (LC/L.1031), 1997.
Mecanismos de pago/contratación del régimen contributivo dentro del marco de seguridad social en Colombia,
Beatriz Plaza (LC/L.1032), 1997.
A Comparative study of Health Care Policy in United States and Canada: What Policymakers in Latin America
Might and Might Not Learn From Their Neighbors to the North, Joseph White (LC/L.1033), 1997. www
Reforma al sector salud en Argentina, Roberto Tafani (LC/L.1035), 1997. www
Hacia una mayor equidad en la salud: el caso de Chile, Uri Wainer (LC/L.1036), 1997.
El financiamiento del sistema de seguridad social en salud en Colombia, Luis Gonzalo Morales (LC/L.1037), 1997.
www

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Las instituciones de salud previsional (ISAPRES) en Chile, Ricardo Bitrán y Francisco Xavier Almarza
(LC/L.1038), 1997.
Gasto y financiamiento en salud en Argentina, María Cristina V. de Flood (LC/L.1040), 1997.
Mujer y salud, María Cristina V. de Flood (LC/L.1041), 1997.
Tendencias, escenarios y fenómenos emergentes en la configuración del sector salud en la Argentina, Hugo E.
Arce (LC/L.1042), 1997.
Reformas al financiamiento del sistema de salud en Argentina, Silvia Montoya (LC/L.1043), 1997.
Logros y desafíos de la financiación a la vivienda para los grupos de ingresos medios y bajos en Colombia,
Instituto Colombiano de Ahorro y Vivienda (LC/L.1039), 1997.
Acesso ao financiamento para moradia pelos extratos de média e baixa renda. A experiência brasileira recente,
José Pereira Goncalves (LC/L.1044), 1997.
Acceso a la vivienda y subsidios directos a la demanda: análisis y lecciones de las experiencias latinoamericanas,
Gerardo Gonzales Arrieta (LC/L.1045), 1997.

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Crisis financiera y regulación de multibancos en Venezuela, Leopoldo Yáñez (LC/L.1046), 1997.
Reforma al sistema financiero y regulación de conglomerados financieros en Argentina, Carlos Rivas
(LC/L.1047), 1997.
Regulación y supervisión de conglomerados financieros en Colombia, Luis A. Zuleta Jaramillo (LC/L.1049), 1997.
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Algunos factores que inciden en la distribución del ingreso en Argentina, 1980-1992. Un análisis descriptivo,
L. Felipe Jiménez y Nora Ruedi (LC/L.1055), 1997.
Algunos factores que inciden en la distribución del ingreso en Colombia, 1980-1992. Un análisis descriptivo,
L. Felipe Jiménez y Nora Ruedi (LC/L.1060), 1997.
Algunos factores que inciden en la distribución del ingreso en Chile, 1987-1992. Un análisis descriptivo,
L. Felipe Jiménez y Nora Ruedi (LC/L.1067), 1997.
Un análisis descriptivo de la distribución del ingreso en México, 1984-1992, L. Felipe Jiménez y Nora Ruedi
(LC/L.1068), 1997.
Un análisis descriptivo de factores que inciden en la distribución del ingreso en Brasil, 1979-1990, L. Felipe
Jiménez y Nora Ruedi (LC/L.1077 y Corr.1), 1997.
Rasgos estilizados de la distribución del ingreso en cinco países de América Latina y lineamientos generales para
una política redistributiva, L. Felipe Jiménez y Nora Ruedi (LC/L.1084), 1997.
Perspectiva de género en la reforma de la seguridad social en salud en Colombia, Amparo Hernández Bello
(LC/L.1108), 1998.
Reformas a la institucionalidad del crédito y el financiamiento a empresas de menor tamaño: La experiencia
chilena con sistemas de segundo piso 1990-1998, Juan Foxley (LC/L.1156), 1998. www
El factor institucional en reformas a las políticas de crédito y financiamiento de empresas de menor tamaño: la
experiencia colombiana reciente, Luis Alberto Zuleta Jaramillo (LC/L.1163), 1999. www
Un perfil del déficit de vivienda en Uruguay, 1994, Raquel Szalachman (LC/L.1165), 1999. www
El financiamiento de la pequeña y mediana empresa en Costa Rica: análisis del comportamiento reciente y
propuestas de reforma, Francisco de Paula Gutiérrez y Rodrigo Bolaños Zamora (LC/L.1178), 1999.
El factor institucional en los resultados y desafíos de la política de vivienda de interés social en Chile, Alvaro
Pérez-Iñigo González (LC/L.1194), 1999. www
Un perfil del déficit de vivienda en Bolivia, 1992, Raquel Szalachman (LC/L.1200), 1999. www
La política de vivienda de interés social en Colombia en los noventa, María Luisa Chiappe de Villa (LC/L.1211-P),
N° de venta: S.99.II.G.10 (US$10.0), 1999. www
El factor institucional en reformas a la política de vivienda de interés social: la experiencia reciente de Costa Rica,
Rebeca Grynspan y Dennis Meléndez (LC.L.1212-P), N° de venta: S.99.II.G.11 (US$10.0),1999. www
O financiamiento do sistema público de saúde brasileiro, Rosa María Márques, (LC/L.1233-P), N° de venta:
S.99.II.G.14 (US$10.0), 1999. www
Un perfil del déficit de vivienda en Colombia, 1994, Raquel Szalachman, (LC/L.1234-P), N° de venta:
S.99.II.G.15 (US$10.0), 1999. www
Políticas de crédito para empresas de menor tamaño con bancos de segundo piso: experiencias recientes en Chile,
Colombia y Costa Rica, Günther Held, (LC/L.1259-P), N° de venta: S.99.II.G.34 (US$10.0), 1999. www
Alternativas de política para fortalecer el ahorro de los hogares de menores ingresos: el caso del Perú. Gerardo
Gonzales Arrieta, (LC/L.1245-P), N° de venta: S.99.II.G.29 (US$10.0), 1999. www
Políticas para la reducción de costos en los sistemas de pensiones: el caso de Chile. Jorge Mastrángelo,
(LC/L.1246-P), N° de venta: S.99.II.G.36 (US$10.0), 1999. www
Price-based capital account regulations: the Colombian experience. José Antonio Ocampo and Camilo Ernesto
Tovar, (LC/L.1243-P), Sales Number: E.99.II.G.41 (US$10.0), 1999. www
Transitional Fiscal Costs and Demographic Factors in Shifting from Unfunded to Funded Pension in Latin
America. Jorge Bravo and Andras Uthoff (LC/L.1264-P), Sales Number: E.99.II.G.38 (US$10.0), 1999. www
Alternativas de política para fortalecer el ahorro de los hogares de menores ingresos: el caso de El Salvador.
Francisco Angel Sorto, (LC/L.1265-P), N° de venta: S.99.II.G.46 (US$10.0), 1999. www
Liberalización, crisis y reforma del sistema bancario chileno: 1974-1999, Günther Held y Luis Felipe Jiménez,
(LC/L.1271-P), N° de venta: S.99.II.G.53 (US$10.0), 1999. www
Evolución y reforma del sistema de salud en México, Enrique Dávila y Maite Guijarro, (LC/L.1314-P), N° de
venta: S.00.II.G.7 (US$10.0), 2000. www
Un perfil del déficit de vivienda en Chile, 1994. Raquel Szalachman (LC/L.1337-P), N° de venta: S.00.II.G.22
(US$10.0), 2000. www

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Estudio comparativo de los costos fiscales en la transición de ocho reformas de pensiones en América Latina.
Carmelo Mesa-Lago, (LC/L.1344-P), N° de venta: S.00.II.G.29 (US$10.0), 2000. www
Proyección de responsabilidades fiscales asociadas a la reforma previsional en Argentina, Walter Schulthess,
Fabio Bertranou y Carlos Grushka, (LC/L.1345-P), N° de venta: S.00.II.G.30 (US$10.0), 2000.www
Riesgo del aseguramiento en el sistema de salud en Colombia en 1997, Humberto Mora Alvarez, (LC/L.1372-P),
N° de venta: S.00.II.G.51 (US$10.0), 2000.www
Políticas de viviendas de interés social orientadas al mercado: experiencias recientes con subsidios a la demanda en
Chile, Costa Rica y Colombia, Günther Held, (LC/L.1382-P), N° de venta: S.00.II.G.55 (US$10.0), 2000.www
Reforma previsional en Brasil. La nueva regla para el cálculo de los beneficios, Vinícius Carvalho Pinheiro y
Solange Paiva Vieira, (LC/L.1386-P), N° de venta: S.00.II.G.62 (US$10.0), 2000.www
Costos e incentivos en la organización de un sistema de pensiones, Adolfo Rodríguez Herrera y Fabio Durán
Valverde, (LC/L.1388-P), N° de venta: S.00.II.G.63 (US$10.0), 2000.www
Políticas para canalizar mayores recursos de los fondos de pensiones hacia la inversión real en México, Luis N.
Rubalcava y Octavio Gutiérrez (LC/L.1393-P), N° de venta: S.00.II.G.66 (US$10.0), 2000. www
Los costos de la transición en un régimen de beneficio definido, Adolfo Rodríguez y Fabio Durán (LC/L.1405-P),
N° de venta: S.00.II.G.74 (US$10.0), 2000.www
Efectos fiscales de la reforma de la seguridad social en Uruguay, Nelson Noya y Silvia Laens, (LC/L.1408-P),
N° de venta: S.00.II.G.78 (US$10.0), 2000. www
Pension funds and the financing productive investment. An analysis based on Brazil’s recent experience, Rogerio
Studart, (LC/L.1409-P), Sales Number: E.00.II.G.83 (US$10.0), 2000. www
Perfil de déficit y políticas de vivienda de interés social: situación de algunos países de la región en los noventa,
Raquel Szalachman, (LC/L.1417-P), N° de venta: S.00.II.G.89 (US$10.0), 2000. www
Reformas al sistema de salud en Chile: Desafíos pendientes, Daniel Titelman, (LC/L.1425-P), N° de venta:
S.00.II.G.99 (US$10.0), 2000.www
Cobertura previsional en Chile: Lecciones y desafíos del sistema de pensiones administrado por el sector privado,
Alberto Arenas de Mesa (LC/L.1457-P), N° de venta: S.00.II.G.137 (US$10.0), 2000.www
Resultados y rendimiento del gasto en el sector público de salud en Chile 1990-1999, Jorge Rodríguez C. y
Marcelo Tokman R. (LC/L.1458-P), N° de venta:S.00.II.G.139 (US$10.00), 2000.www
Políticas para promover una ampliación de la cobertura de los sistemas de pensiones, Gonzalo Hernández Licona
(LC/L.1482-P), N° de venta: S.01.II.G.15 (US$10.0), 2001.www
Evolución de la equidad en el sistema colombiano de salud, Ramón Abel Castaño, José J. Arbelaez, Ursula
Giedion y Luis Gonzalo Morales (LC/L.1526-P), N° de venta: S.01.II.G.71 (US$10.0), 2001.www
El sector privado en el sistema de salud de Costa Rica, Fernando Herrero y Fabio Durán (LC/L.1527-P), N° de
venta: S.01.II.G.72 (US$10.00), 2001.www
Alternativas de política para fortalecer el ahorro de los hogares de menores ingresos: el caso de Uruguay,
Fernando Lorenzo y Rosa Osimani (LC/L.1547-P), N° de venta: S.01.II.G.88 (US$10.00), 2001.www
Reformas del sistema de salud en Venezuela (1987-1999): balance y perspectivas, Marino J. González R.
(LC/L.1553-P), N° de venta: S.01.II.G.95 (US$10.00), 2001.www
La reforma del sistema de pensiones en Chile: desafíos pendientes, Andras Uthoff (LC/L.1575-P), N° de venta:
S.01.II.G.118 (US$10.00), 2001.
International Finance and Caribbean Development, P. Desmond Brunton and S. Valerie Kelsick (LC/L.1609-P),
Sales Number: E.01.II.G.151 (US$10.00), 2001.www
Pension Reform in Europe in the 90s and Lessons for Latin America, Louise Fox and Edward Palmer
(LC/L.1628-P), Sales Number: E.01.II.G.166 (US$10.00), 2001.www
El ahorro familiar en Chile, Enrique Errázuriz L., Fernando Ochoa C., Eliana Olivares B. (LC/L.1629-P), N° de
venta: S.01.II.G.174 (US$10.00), 2001.www
Reformas pensionales y costos fiscales en Colombia, Olga Lucía Acosta y Ulpiano Ayala (LC/L.1630-P), N° de
venta: S.01.II.G.167 (US$10.00), 2001.www
La crisis de la deuda, el financiamiento internacional y la participación del sector privado, José Luis Machinea,
(LC/L.1713-P), N° de venta: S.02.II.G.23 (US$10.00), 2002. www
Políticas para promover una ampliación de la cobertura del sistema de pensiones en Colombia, Ulpiano Ayala y
Olga Lucía Acosta, (LC/L.1724-P), N° de venta: S.02.II.G.39 (US$10.00), 2002. www
La banca multilateral de desarrollo en América Latina, Francisco Sagasti, (LC/L.1731-P), N° de venta:
S.02.II.G.42 (US$10.00), 2002. www
Alternativas de política para fortalecer el ahorro de los hogares de menores ingresos en Bolivia, Juan Carlos
Requena, (LC/L.1747-P), N° de venta: S.02.II.G.59 (US$10.00), 2002. www

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Multilateral Banking and Development Financing in a Context of Financial Volatility, Daniel Titelman,
(LC/L.1746-P), Sales Number: E.02.II.G.58 (US$10.00), 2002. www
El crédito hipotecario y el acceso a la vivienda para los hogares de menores ingresos en América Latina, Gerardo
M. Gonzales Arrieta, (LC/L.1779-P), N° de venta S.02.II.G.94 (US$10.00), 2002. www
Equidad de género en el sistema de salud chileno, Molly Pollack E., (LC/L.1784-P), N° de venta S.02.II.G.99
(US$10.00), 2002. www
Alternativas de políticas para fortalecer el ahorro de los hogares de menores ingresos: el caso de Costa Rica, Saúl
Weisleder, (LC/L.1825-P), N° de venta S.02.II.G.132 (US$10.00), 2002. www
From hard-peg to hard landing? Recent experiences of Argentina and Ecuador, Alfredo Calcagno, Sandra
Manuelito, Daniel Titelman, (LC/L.1849-P), Sales Number: E.03.II.G.17 (US$10.00), 2003. www
Un análisis de la regulación prudencial en el caso colombiano y propuestas para reducir sus efectos procíclicos,
Néstor Humberto Martínez Neira y José Miguel Calderón López, (LC/L.1852-P), N° de venta S.03.II.G.20
(US$10.00), 2003. www
Hacia una visión integrada para enfrentar la inestabilidad y el riesgo, Víctor E. Tokman, (LC/L.1877-P), N° de
venta S.03.II.G.44 (US$10.00), 2003. www
Promoviendo el ahorro de los grupos de menores ingresos: experiencias latinoamericanas., Raquel Szalachman,
(LC/L.1878-P), N° de venta: S.03.II.G.45 (US$10.00), 2003.www
Macroeconomic success and social vulnerability: lessons for Latin America from the celtic tiger, Peadar Kirby,
(LC/L1879-P), Sales Number E.03.II.G.46 (US$10.00), 2003. www
Vulnerabilidad del empleo en Lima. Un enfoque a partir de encuestas a hogares, Javier Herrera y Nancy Hidalgo,
(LC/L.1880-P), N° de venta S.03.II.G.49 (US$10.00), 2003. www
Evaluación de las reformas a los sistemas de pensiones: cuatro aspectos críticos y sugerencias de políticas, Luis
Felipe Jiménez y Jessica Cuadros (LC/L.1913-P), N° de venta S.03.II.G.71 (US$10.00), 2003. www
Macroeconomic volatility and social vulnerability in Brazil: The Cardoso government (1995-2002) and
perspectives, Roberto Macedo (LC/L.1914-P), Sales Number E.03.II.G.72 (US$10.00), 2003. www
Seguros de desempleo, objetivos, características y situación en América Latina, Mario D. Velásquez Pinto,
(LC/L.1917-P), N° de venta S.03.II.G.73 (US$10.00), 2003. www
Incertidumbre económica, seguros sociales, solidaridad y responsabilidad fiscal, Daniel Titelman y Andras Uthoff
(LC/L.1919-P), N° de venta S.03.II.G.74 (US$10.00), 2003. www
Políticas macroeconómicas y vulnerabilidad social. La Argentina en los años noventa, Mario Damill, Roberto
Frenkel y Roxana Maurizio, (LC/L.1929-P), N° de venta S.03.II.G.84 (US$10.00), 2003. www
Política fiscal y protección social: sus vínculos en la experiencia chilena, Alberto Arenas de Mesa y Julio Guzmán
Cox, (LC/L.1930-P), N° de venta S.03.II.G.86 (US$10.00), 2003. www
La banca de desarrollo y el financiamiento productivo, Daniel Titelman, (LC/L.1980-P), N° de venta
S.03.II.G.139 (US$10.00), 2003. www
Acceso al crédito bancario de las microempresas chilenas: lecciones de la década de los noventa, Enrique Román,
(LC/L.1981-P), N° de venta S.03.II.G.140 (US$10.00), 2003. www
Microfinanzas en Centroamérica: los avances y desafíos, Iris Villalobos, Arie Sanders y Marieke de Ruijter de
Wildt, (LC/L.1982-P), N° de venta: S.03.II.G.141 (US$10.00), 2003. www
Régime de croissance, vulnérabilité financière et protection sociale en Amérique latine. Les conditions «macro»
de l’efficacité de la lutte contre la pauvreté, Bruno Lautier, Jaime Marques-Pereira, et Pierre Salama,
(LC/L.2001-P) N° de vente: F.03.II.G.162 (US$10.00), 2003. www
Las redes de protección social: modelo incompleto, Olga Lucía Acosta y Juan Carlos Ramírez, (LC/L.2067-P),
N° de venta S.04.II.G.10 (US$10.00), 2004. www
Inserción laboral desventajosa y desigualdades de cobertura previsional: la situación de las mujeres, Jessica
Cuadros y Luis Felipe Jiménez, (LC/L.2070-P), N° de venta S.04.II.G.13 (US$10.00), 2004. www
Macroeaconomía y pobreza: lecciones desde latinoamérica, Luis Felipe López-Calva y Mabel Andalón López,
(LC/L.2071-P), N° de venta S.04.II.G.14 (US$10.00), 2004. www
Las reformas de pensiones en América Latina y su impacto en los principios de la seguridad social, Carmelo
Mesa-Lago, (LC/L.2090-P), N° de venta S.04.II.G.29 (US$10.00), 2004. www
Microfinanzas en Bolivia, Jorge MacLean, , (LC/L. 2093-P) N° de venta: S.04.II.G.32 (US$10.00), 2004. www
Asimetrías, comercio y financiamiento en el área de libre comercio de las Américas (ALCA), y en América
Latina y el Caribe, Héctor Assael, (LC/L.2094-P), N° de venta S.04.II.G.31 (US$10.00), 2004 www
Crecimiento, competitividad y equidad: rol del sector financiero, Molly Pollack y Alvaro García, (LC/L.2142-P),
N° de venta S.04.II.G.69 (US$10.00), 2004. www
Opciones de la banca de desarrollo en Chile: el “convidado de piedra” del sistema financiero chileno, Gonzalo
Rivas, (LC/L.2143-P), N° de venta S.04.II.G.70 (US$10.00), 2004. www

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Microfinanzas rurales: experiencias y lecciones para América latina, Alejandro Gutierrez, (LC/L.2165-P),
N° de venta S.04.II.G.93 (US$10.00), 2004. www
Las dimensiones laborales de la transformación productiva con equidad, Víctor E. Tokman, (LC/L.2187-P),
N° de venta S.04.II.G.115 (US$10.00), 2004. www
Sistema previsional Argentino: crisis, reforma y crisis de la reforma, Oscar Cetrángolo y Carlos Grushka,
(LC/L.2219-P), N° de venta S.04.II.G.139 (US$10.00), 2004. www
Alternativas para reducir la discriminación y la segmentación por riesgo en el sistema de salud chileno, Stephen
Blackburn, Consuelo Espinosa y Marcelo Tokman (LC/L.2221-P), N° de venta S.04.II.G.143 (US$10.00), 2004.
www

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La evolución y perspectivas de la banca de desarrollo en latinoamérica frente al caso colombiano, Beatriz
Marulanda y Mariana Paredes, (LC/L.2248-P), N° de venta S.05.II.G.6 (US$10.00), 2004. www
Evolución, perspectivas y diseño de políticas sobre la banca de desarrollo en el Perú, Marco Castillo Torres,
(LC/L.2274-P), N° de venta S.04.II.G.25 (US$10.00), 2005. www
A experiência brasileira com instituições financeiras de desenvolvimento, Carlos Eduardo de Freitas,
(LC/L.2328-P), N° de venta P.04.II.G.115 (US$10.00), 2005. www
Regional financial integration in east Asia: challenges and prospect, Yung Chul Park, retirada.
La banca de desarrollo en América Latina y el Caribe, Romy Calderón Alcas, (LC/L.2330-P) N° de venta:
S.05.II.G.81 (US$10.00). 2005. www
Asian bond market development: rationale and strategy, Yung Chul Park, Jae Ha Park, Julia Leung, Kanit
Sangsubhan, retirada.
An analysis of the experiences of financial and monetary cooperation in Africa, Ernest Aryeetey, retirada.
The Arab experience, Georges Corm, retirada.
European financial institutions: a useful inspiration for developing countries?, Stephany Griffith-Jones, Alfred
Steinherr, Ana Teresa Fuzzo de Lima, retirada.
Reforming the global financial architecture: the potential of regional institutions, Roy Culpeper, retirada.
Regional development banks: a comparative perspective, Francisco Sagasti and Fernando Prada, retirada.
Regional exchange rate arrangements: the european experience, Charles Wyplosz, retirada.
Ejemplos de uso de tecnologías de información y comunicación en programas de protección social en América
Latina y el Caribe, Alvaro Vásquez V., (LC/L.2427-P). N° de venta S.05.II.G.174 (US$10.00). 2005. www
La protección frente al desempleo en América Latina, Mario D. Velásquez Pinto, (LC/L.2470-P). N° de venta
S.05.II.G.217 (US$10.00). 2005. www
Non-contributory pensions: Bolivia and Antigua in an international context, Larry Willmore, (LC/L2481-P). Sales
Number: E.06.II.G.12 (US$10.00).2006. www
Inclusion of the European “Nordic Model” in the debate concerning reform of social protection: the long-term
development of nordic welfare systems 1890-2005 and their transferability to Latin America of the 21st century,
Eero Carroll and Joakim Palme, (LC/L.2493-P). Sales Number: E.06.II.G.24 (US$10.00). 2006. www
Relación de dependencia del trabajo formal y brechas de protección social en América Latina y el Caribe, Andras
Uthoff, Cecilia Vera y Nora Ruedi , (LC/L.2497-P). N° de venta S.06.II.G.29 (US$10.00). 2006. www
Inserción laboral, mercados de trabajo y protección social, Víctor Tokman, (LC/L.2507-P). N° de venta S.06.II.G.
39 (US$10.00). 2006. www
Reformas de salud y nuevos modelos de atención primaria en América Central, Adolfo Rodríguez Herrera,
(LC/L.2524-P). N° de venta S.06.II.G.51 (US$10.00). 2006. www
Protección social efectiva, calidad de la cobertura, equidad y efectos distributivos del sistema de pensiones en
Chile, Alberto Arenas de Mesa, María Claudia Llanes y Fidel Miranda, (LC/L.2555-P). N° de venta S.06.II.G.83
(US$10.00), 2006. www
La reforma de salud en Costa Rica, Adolfo Rodríguez Herrera, (LC/L.2540-P) N° de venta: S.06.II.G.68
(US$10.00), 2006. www
La reforma de salud en Honduras, Adolfo Rodríguez Herrera, (LC/L.2541-P). N° de ventas S.06.II.G.69
(US$10.00). 2006. www
La reforma de salud en Nicaragua, Adolfo Rodríguez Herrera, (LC/L.2552-P). N° de ventas S.06.II.G.79
(US$10.00). 2006. www
Ciclo económico y programas de compensación social: el caso del sistema Chile Solidario, Américo Ibarra Lara y
Gonzalo Martner Fanta, (LC/L.2553-P), N° de venta: S.06.II.G.80 (US$10.00). 2006. www
Reformas recientes en el sector salud en Centroamérica, Ricardo Bitrán, (LC/L.2554-P), N° de venta S.06.II.G.81
(US$10.00), 2006. www

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N° 186

Social Security in the English-speaking Caribbean, Oliver Paddison, (LC/L.2561-P), Sales Number E.06.II.G.89
(US$10.00), 2006. www
Public policy for pensions, health and sickness insurance. Potential lessons from Sweden for Latin America,
Edward Palmer, (LC/L.2562-P), Sales Number E.06.II.G.90 (US$10.00), 2006. www
El acceso a la jubilación o pensión en Uruguay: ¿cuántos y quiénes lo lograrían?, Marisa Bucheli, Natalia
Ferreira-Coimbra, Álvaro Corteza, Ianina Rossi, (LC/L.2563-P), N° de venta S.06.II.G.91 (US$10.00), 2006.
www

181.
182.
183.
184.
185.
186.

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Fertility and female labor supply in Latin America: new causal evidence, Guillermo Cruces and Sebastian
Galiani, (LC/L.2587-P) Sales Nº E.06.II.G.117 (US$10.00), 2006. www
Risk-Adjusted Poverty in Argentina: measurement and determinants, Guillermo Cruces and Quentin Wodon,
(LC/L.2589-P), Sales Number E.06.II.G.118 (US$10.00), 2006. www
Sistemas contributivos, densidad de cotizaciones y cobertura de pensiones, Eduardo Fajnzylber, , (LC/L.2606-P),
N° de venta S.06.II.G.128 (US$10.00), 2006. www
Pensiones para todos: análisis de alternativas para extender la cobertura del sistema chileno de previsión social,
Eduardo Fajnzylber, (LC/L.2607-P), N° de venta S.06.II.G.129 (US$10.00), 2006. www
Análisis de situación de salud y estado de los sistemas de salud de países del Caribe, James Cercone,
(LC/L.2620-P), Sales Number S..06.II.G.144 (US$10.00), 2006. www
Insurance underwriter or financial development fund: what role for reserve pooling in Latin America?, Barry
Eichengreen, (LC/L.2621-P), Sales Number E.06.II.G.145 (US$10.00), 2006. www

El lector interesado en adquirir números anteriores de esta serie puede solicitarlos dirigiendo su correspondencia a la Unidad de
Distribución, CEPAL, Casilla 179-D, Santiago, Chile, Fax (562) 210 2069, correo electrónico: publications@eclac.cl.

www Disponible también en Internet: http://www.cepal.org/ o http://www.eclac.org

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