Tulane University

On Wednesday evening, January 20, from 5:30 to 7:30 pm at the Shotwell Room of the Carnegie Endowment the ninth meeting of the Latin American Economies Roundtable (LAER) will take place. A group of some 20 participants drawn from the major international financial institutions, U.S. government agencies, think tanks and universities, and the banking and investment community are expected. Participants analyze the state of Latin American and Caribbean economies, how they are affected by the external environment and what are the best policy options.

The group meets periodically in closed sessions to share information, assess and interpret developments, diagnose potential problems, and exchange ideas about appropriate policy responses by governments and others. The insights and conclusions from the Roundtable are disseminated through private meetings and meeting reports.

It has been nearly two years since the Economies Roundtable first met to discuss how the global crisis and the U.S. recession would affect Latin America and how the region should respond. Most countries appear now to be emerging from the crisis and with less damage than had been expected. The questions now being focused on include: What are the prospects of a sustained and robust recovery? What dangers remain? What explains the variations in performance of the countries? What explains the similarities among most countries? What are the important lessons of the experience? Have counter-cyclical policies been implemented? Did they work? What has been right and what has been missing in the responses from the U.S. and the IFI’s?

For more information, please visit TheDialogue.org.

The Roundtable is a joint project between the Inter-American Dialogue, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and Tulane University and is co-sponsored by the Stone Center for Latin American Studies. This event is by invitation only.