Latin America Economics Weekly Colombia’s fuel subsidies, Brazil’s presidential race The commitment of Colombia’s new administration to address costly energy subsidies is the fiscally responsible thing to do, but it will come at the expense of exacerbating the country’s inflation... 16th September 2022 · 7 mins read
Latin America Economics Weekly External risks, Banxico minutes, Massa’s orthodoxy Current account figures released this week go a long way to explaining the diverging performance between the Mexican and the Chilean pesos. While we expect both to weaken over the coming months, there... 26th August 2022 · 7 mins read
Latin America Economics Weekly Chile’s constitution cost, Massa & Argentina’s mess A recent report suggesting that provisions in Chile’s draft new constitution could increase annual government spending by 9-14% of GDP underscores that the country is shifting towards the state... 5th August 2022 · 6 mins read
Latin America Economics Update New “superminister” no saviour for Argentina’s woes The appointment of Sergio Massa as head of Argentina’s newly-created economic “superministry” provides some hope that the government will try to stick to its latest IMF deal. But it will be a major... 5th August 2022 · 7 mins read
Latin America Economics Weekly Argentina’s new superministry, Chile minutes The appointment of Sergio Massa as head of Argentina’s newly-created economic “superministry” provides some hope that the government will stick to its latest IMF deal but, even so, meeting the Fund’s... 29th July 2022 · 6 mins read
Latin America Economics Weekly Argentina, Banxico minutes, Brazil data dump While Argentina’s new finance minister has made some encouraging noises about sticking to the current IMF deal, there’s still no acknowledgement that the real exchange rate needs to weaken to restore... 8th July 2022 · 6 mins read
Latin America Economics Update Goodbye Guzmán, hello crisis The news that Argentine economy minister, Martín Guzmán, resigned over the weekend points to growing influence of the Kirchner faction of the government. From an economic perspective, this is likely... 4th July 2022 · 2 mins read
Latin America Economics Weekly Ocampo, BanRep hawks & Argentina in crisis (again) Colombian President-elect Gustavo Petro’s choice of José Antonio Ocampo as his finance minister provides an early sign that Petro will govern as an economic moderate. Mr Ocampo will also sit on the... 1st July 2022 · 5 mins read
Latin America Chart Pack High inflation fuels strikes and protests High inflation seems to be causing growing unrest in the region, which threatens to be economically disruptive and raise fiscal concerns. Recent protests in Ecuador have hit its oil sector hard, while... 28th June 2022 · 14 mins read
Latin America Economics Weekly Argentina’s IMF review, Mexican industry recovering This week's staff-level agreement between the IMF and Argentina, for the first review of its $44bn deal, gave little assurance that the Fund will knuckle down on the country’s growing inflation and... 10th June 2022 · 6 mins read
Latin America Chart Pack Colombia: no more business as usual The first round of Colombia’s presidential election has set up a close race between left-wing Gustavo Petro and populist Rodolfo Hernández in the second round vote on 19 th June. The vote was a major... 30th May 2022 · 14 mins read
Latin America Chart Pack Food inflation a growing concern Inflation continues to march higher in Latin America, most recently driven by surging food prices owing to poor domestic weather conditions and rising global agricultural prices. This has led to... 27th April 2022 · 11 mins read
Latin America Economic Outlook High commodity prices won’t lift all boats The surge in commodity prices will drive stronger regional growth than the consensus expects this year, but not all economies in Latin America will benefit. While Brazil and Colombia will see a terms... 21st April 2022 · 26 mins read
Latin America Economics Weekly Boric on the backfoot, Argentine inflation concerns The political fight over a fresh round of pension withdrawals in Chile underlines the Boric administration's struggle to wean the economy off accommodative policies. This will heap more pressure on... 14th April 2022 · 5 mins read
Latin America Chart Pack Commodities boost Lat Am markets, economies less so High commodity prices caused by the war in Ukraine have driven a rally in Latin American currencies and equities this month, and are causing exports to surge. Weekly trade figures from Brazil and... 31st March 2022 · 16 mins read
Latin America Economics Update Argentina: Catch-22 for IMF deal 22 One issue the IMF seems to be glossing over in its latest deal with Argentina (the 22 nd in the country’s history) is that the currency looks overvalued. But the adjustment needed to improve the... 30th March 2022 · 5 mins read
