The Limits of Stabilization: Infrastructure, Public Deficits and Growth in Latin America

Macroeconomic crises in Latin American countries during the 1980s and 1990s led to severe fiscal adjustments and reduction of public spending levels on infrastructure construction projects across the region, leading to an opening up of infrastructure activities to the private sector. This publication assesses the consequences of this changed public-private relationship, in terms of trends in quantity and quality of infrastructure provision in Latin America over the last two decades, and the implication of these trends for economic growth and public deficits in the region.