Other Activities

CLAE staff members participated in a number of activities in addition to research and writing last year.

Gruben and Kiser accompanied Dallas Fed President Robert D. McTeer, Jr., to the Central Bank of Brazil. There they met with bank President Arminio Fraga and board members Ilan Goldfajn and Beny Parnes and their staffs to discuss the Brazilian and U.S. economies and monetary policies.

The CLAE was active in the formation of the Institute for the Study of Financial Intermediation and Growth. ISFIG, a joint endeavor of the Dallas Fed and the University of Texas at Austin, was established in 2002 to promote research and dialogue between policymakers and scholars, with a focus on Latin America.

The center organized a media roundtable at the Dallas Fed's San Antonio Branch that included presentations on Mexican fiscal reform (Quintin), the country's financial structure (Skelton), and its economic outlook (Keith Phillips); policy issues on Mexican–U.S. immigration and trade (Pia Orrenius); and free market reforms in Latin America (Zarazaga).

A CLAE seminar at Trinity University in San Antonio covered the globalization of the Mexican banking system (Skelton) and the country's economic outlook (Phillips); the integration of U.S. and Mexican markets (Orrenius); the stock wealth effect (John Duca); and free trade in the Americas (Zarazaga).

Policy issues were the focus in other forums. Gruben presented "How Much Does International Trade Affect Business Cycle Synchronization?" at the Latin American Meeting of the Econometric Society in Sao Paulo and the Latin American and Caribbean Economic Association meetings in Madrid. He presented "Capital Account Liberalization and Disinflation in the 1990s" at the Central Bank of Uruguay's Jornadas de Economia in Montevideo and "Mexico and U.S. Business Cycles: Disconnects and Connects" at Texas A&M International University. Gruben spoke on "Some Finer Points of Trade Liberalization: Did NAFTA Affect Maquiladora Industries at All?" at a conference whose sponsors included the Dallas Fed's El Paso Branch and the University of Texas at El Paso. Gruben coauthored "Resisting and Recovering from Crisis: Lessons from Brazil and Argentina," which John Welch presented at a Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta conference on domestic capital and global finance in Latin America.

Zarazaga discussed "The Convertibility Law, Optimal Policy Rules, and the Fate of Free Market Reforms" at the Teresa Lozano Long Institute of Latin American Studies at UT–Austin. He presented "Argentina's Recovery and Excess Capital Shallowing" at meetings of the Latin American and Caribbean Economics Association in Madrid, Centro de Estudios Macroeconomicos de Argentina in Buenos Aires, and Georgetown University. He presented "Banking and Finance in Argentina in the Period 1900–35" at the 13th World Economic History Congress. At an international seminar organized by the Central Bank of Venezuela and Universidad Central de Venezuela, Zarazaga presented "Conjectures on Why a Devaluation Did Not Cure Argentina." He presented "Emerging or Submerging Markets? The Consequences of Economic Turmoil in Latin America" to the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy at Rice University. He spoke on "Why Latin America Needs the Free Trade Agreement for the Americas More than Ever" at Austin College's Center for Southwestern and Mexican Studies and "Argentina's Meltdown: Food for Thought" to the Dallas Committee on Foreign Relations.

Orrenius presented "The Role of U.S. Border Enforcement in the Crossing Behavior of Mexican Migrants" at the Third Binational Conference on Mexico–U.S. Migration in Puerto Vallarta. She talked about the "Impact of Trade on the U.S. Mexico Border" at the annual meeting of the Society of American Business Writers and Editors. "Do Amnesty Programs Encourage Illegal Immigration? Evidence from IRCA" was her topic at a National Institutes of Health conference and at meetings of the Population Association of America and the Association of Private Enterprise Education. Mark Guzman presented "Coyote Crossings: The Role of Smugglers in Illegal Immigration and Border Enforcement" at the Latin American and Caribbean Economics Association meetings in Madrid.

Quintin presented "The Implications of Capital–Skill Complementarity in Economies with Large Informal Sectors" at the University of Montreal, and coauthor Amaral talked about the paper at a staff seminar at the Dallas Fed. Quintin presented "Growing Old Together: Firm Survival and Turnover Rates" at the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta and to a staff seminar at the Dallas Fed.

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