Most Latin American economies in the 1980’s and early 1990’s were burdened with extremely high inflation rates. Chile’s strategy to strengthen its financial market was to rely on inflation-linked securities. Indeed, indexation pervaded the whole economy for almost thirty years. However, the sharp decrease in the annual inflation rate over the last decade— from 26
This paper reviews the Latin American experience with highway privatization during the last decade. Based on evidence from Argentina, Colombia and Chile, we find that private financing of new highways freed up fewer public resources than expected because public funds were often diverted to bail out franchise holders. Furthermore, many of the standard benefits of