Financial Crises and Financial Contagion in Latin America

Abstract

The article deals with modern financial crises and features of their spread in Latin America. The classification of crises and ways of their identification are presented. The interconnectedness of modern financial crises is emphasized, which leads to the emergence of double and triple crises. Such crises have been repeatedly recorded in Argentina, Mexico, Uruguay and other countries. Over a period of more than fifty years, Latin America experienced 165 financial crises, with the largest share of them occurring in currency crises. The article proposes the indicator “crisis burden on the countries of Latin America” – its calculation for the period 1970–2019 showed that the region is characterized by alternating growth and decrease in the burden from banking and currency crises with a relatively stable load from debt crises. The maximum intensity of financial crises was observed in the 1970–1980, and then it decreased, although there were isolated spikes. The interconnectedness of crises is analyzed in the context of the effects of financial contagion – the transmission of shocks through different channels from one country or region to another country or region. Two main approaches explaining the mechanisms of transmission of crises between countries have been allocated. The results of studies indicating the direction and extent of financial contagion in Latin America were discussed. In particular, it is shown that contagion in the crisis periods of 1990–2000 spread both within the region and from the United States through trade and financial channels. The article presents the results of its own empirical study, which also confirmed the existence of contagion in this region. For the calculations, daily data on the stock indices of 8 Latin American countries over a long period of time were used. With the help of econometric tests for shifts in correlations (Forbes-Rigobon test and coskewness test), it was found that the recipients of contagion that spread through the stock market channels from the United States during the global financial crisis of 2007–2009 were countries such as Argentina, Brazil, Colombia and Mexico. During the crisis caused by the spread of COVID‑19, only Mexico was susceptible to contagion. This made it possible to draw a conclusion about the resilience of Latin American economies to the pandemic shock and the effectiveness of restrictive government measures.