Inter-American Seminar on Economics.

• Position: 11th annual conference of the National Bureau of Economic Research, Dec 3, 1998-Dec 5, 1998, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

The NBER held its Eleventh Annual Inter-American Seminar on Economics in Rio de Janiero on December 3-5. Sebastian Edwards, NBER and University of California, Los Angeles, and Afonso Bevilaqua and Marcio Garcia, PUC-Rio, organized this year's program:

Adolfo Barajas, International Monetary Fund, and Roberto Steiner and Natalia Salazar, Fedesarrollo, "Interest Spreads in Banking: Costs, Financial Taxation, Market Power, and Loan Quality in the Colombian Case, 1974-96"

Discussants: Marco Bonomo, PUC-Rio, and Ashoka Mody, World Bank

Sebastian Edwards, "Interest Rate Volatility, Capital Controls, and Contagion" (NBER Working Paper No. 6756)

Discussants: Renato Flores, EPGE/FGV, and Federico Sturzenegger, Universidad Torcuato di Tella

Julio Santaella, ITAM, and Masao Ogaki, Ohio State University, "The Exchange Rate and the Term Structure of Interest Rates in Mexico"

Discussants: Ernesto Schargrodsky, Universidad Torcuato di Tella, and Ernesto Talvi, OERES

Michael P. Dooley, Federal Reserve Board, "Debt Management and Crises in Developing Countries"

Discussants: Jose De Gregorio, University of Chile, and Rogerio Werneck, PUC-Rio

Anne O. Krueger, NBER and Stanford University, and Aaron Tornell, NBER and Harvard University, "Recovery from Crisis: The Role of Bank Restructuring" (NBER Working Paper No. 7042)

Discussants: Renato Fragelli, EPGE/FGV, and Gerard Caprio, Jr., World Bank

Liliana Rojas-Suarez, Deutsche Bank "Understanding the Behavior of Bank Spreads in Latin America"

Discussants: Albert Fishlow, Council on Foreign Relations, and Sergio Werland, EPGE/FGV

Gerard Caprio, Jr., "Banking on Crisis: Expensive Lessons from Recent Financial Crises"

Discussants: Fernando Hollanda Barbosa, IBMEC, and Julio Santaella

Afonso Bevilaqua and Mario Garcia, "The Brazilian Banking Sector and the Macroeconomic Responses to the Recent International Financial Crises"

Discussants: Michael P Dooley, and Affonso Coloe Pastore, USP

Barry Eichengreen, NBER and University of California, Berkeley; and Ashoka Mody, "Banks or Bonds? Comparing Bank and Bond Loan Spreads in Emerging Markets"

Discussants: Eduardo Fernandez-Arias, InterAmerican Development Bank, and Aaron Tornell

Jose De Gregorio; Sebastian Edwards; and Rodrigo Valdes, Central Bank of Chile, "Capital Controls in Chile: An Assessment"

Discussants: Adolfo Barajas, and Jose Carlos Dos Reis Carvalho, Bank of Patcual

Ernesto Schargrodsky, and Federico Sturzenegger, "Concentration and Competition in the...