Latin American Reserve Fund: Latin Americas alternative to the IMF?

William N. Kring

Chapter 9 in Monetary Policy Challenges in Latin America, 2023, pp 151-168 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: While the Latin American Reserve Fund (FLAR) went largely unnoticed for much of its 20th-century existence, the FLAR has evolved considerably during its more than four decades in operation. It began as a small reserve pooling arrangement for Andean countries and now occupies a vital role as the only liquidity mechanism in the region. The FLAR has become so important to regional financial stability that it has even out-lent the International Monetary Fund to its member countries during key periods in its history. While this book explores the multiplicity of challenges that Latin American countries face, such as financial instability, exchange rate volatility, and debt sustainability, this chapter highlights the unique and important role that the FLAR plays in advising member countries on macroeconomic stability efforts and in responding to balance-of-payments and liquidity challenges. It explains how adaptability is one of FLAR’s keys to success over its history and demonstrates how members broadened FLAR’s scope and bolstered the mechanism’s lending capacity to US$6.8 billion in response to the COVID-19 crisis. The chapter concludes with a brief discussion of how further efforts toward regional integration and the expansion of existing efforts, such as FLAR, could help to continue to foster financial stability in the region.

Keywords: Development Studies; Economics and Finance; Politics and Public Policy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.elgaronline.com/doi/10.4337/9781802200706.00022 (application/pdf)
Our link check indicates that this URL is bad, the error code is: 503 Service Temporarily Unavailable

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:elg:eechap:20918_9

Ordering information: This item can be ordered from
http://www.e-elgar.com

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in Chapters from Edward Elgar Publishing
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Darrel McCalla ().