Comments: http://faculty.oxy.edu/whitney/misc/wkshp_2003/comments.htm
    Sources: http://faculty.oxy.edu/whitney/misc/wkshp_2003/sources.htm
    Country data: http://faculty.oxy.edu/whitney/misc/wkshp_2003/countries.htm

World Bank: 1944
    Special loans for LDCs
    FY03: $116B in loans outstanding; $11.3B new loans
IMF: 1944; 184 members
    Low-interest loans: 3% routinely
        0.5% for special Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility Loans
    Lending capacity: $134B.
WTO: 1995; 146 members
    Last one: Macedonia (4/2003)

Real gross domestic product (GDP) per capita
    US ($1996)
    1970: 17,446
    2002: 32,962 (36,509 nominal)
Growth rate: 2% per year

Philosophies underlying the IMF and WTO:
    Countries grow faster with:
        Openness
        Sound management

Large sample professional studies:
    (1) Sebastian Edwards, Economic Journal, 3/98: 93 countries. Open economies grow faster
    (2) Bekaert, Geert, and Campbell R. Harvey, NBER, Spring 2001. 30 and 95 country samples. Financial liberalization --> +growth : estimated increase in growth: most likely: 1.5-2.3% minimum: 0.7-1.4%

Exports: Receipts for goods and services sold abroad
Imports: Payments for goods and services bought from abroad

US data for 2002:
    Exports: $1,039B
    Imports: $1,472B
    GDP: $10,506

WTO: 100 x (X + M)/GDP -- openness
    US: 23.9%
IMF: 100 x (X - M)/GDP
    X-M = Current Account Balance (CAB)
    US: -4.1%
    Measures how much a country loans or borrows.

Rule of thumb: Keep CAB deficit < 3% of GDP

Argentina's situation:
    Not a very open economy
        Trade share: Lower than for US: Penn World Tables 
        Globalization index

    Has not performed very well
        6th richest country in the world in 1900
        Income per capita: CIA Factbook or World Bank

    Why?
        Debt and policy troubles:
        CAB: World Bank: Country at a glance tables
        Exchange rate: FX Plot Interface
        Aggregate Governance Indicators Excel spreadsheet

    How to cut a CAB deficit? Only 4 options exist:
        +S, -I
        +T, -G (either way lowers the government's budget deficit)