The Becker Friedman Institute initiated sponsorship of a major project starting in 2014, “The Monetary and Fiscal History of Latin America,” to investigate the complicated economic histories of 11 Latin American countries. Since then, BFI has engaged more than 30 economists to provide supporting research and analytical insights for the project and sponsored six conferences, in which economists received feedback and refined their work. A unique aspect of this project is that researchers are employing a common framework and building comparable data sets. While each country is different, many share similar experiences that will allow for some common lessons to emerge. A December 2017 conference sponsored by the Becker Friedman Institute’s Macro Finance Research Program (MFR), under the leadership of Lars Peter Hansen, was the final gathering of researchers prior to the release of their papers. The next step is to publish the completed papers, along with a comparative analysis that will describe common themes and suggest how to better structure macroeconomic policies going forward.
The following three videos, with economists attending the December conference, provide unique insights into questions surrounding the economic history of Latin America:
Spotlight on Chile with Jose De Gregorio, Former Governor of the Central Bank of Chile and Professor of Economics, Universidad de Chile
Spotlight on Mexico with Felipe Meza, Centro de Investigacion Economica, Instituto Tecnologico Autonomo de Mexico
Spotlight on Argentina with Ricardo Lopez Murphy, Former Minister of Economy and Defense for Argentina, Academica Advisor, FIEL
Read the news feature article about the conference on the Becker Friedman Institute’s website .
