The process of assembling this book has resulted in a decided imbalance in
the credit and debit sides of our personal balance sheets. The papers were presented at an authors’ meeting at the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard
University, in Cambridge and at a public conference at the Inter-American Development Bank in Washington, DC. At these meetings, detailed commentaries
were provided by Martin Anidjar, Howard Bodenhorn, Jorge Braga de Macedo,
Guillermo Calvo, Eliana Cardoso, Kevin Cowan, Paul Denoon, Martin Eichenbaum, Eduardo Fernández-Arias, Morris Goldstein, Ben Heller, Jonathan Kelly,
Michael Kumhoff, Enrique Mendoza, Michael Mussa, Arturo Porzecanski, Carmen Reinhart, Roberto Rigobon, Nouriel Roubini, Ernesto Stein, Federico
Sturzenegger, Richard Sylla, and Philip Turner. Financial support was provided
by the Center for International Development and the David Rockefeller Center
for Latin American Studies, both of Harvard University; the Institute of European Studies at the University of California, Berkeley; and the Inter-American
Development Bank. The Cambridge seminar was organized by Aaron Jette,
while the Washington conference was arranged by Norelis Betancourt and
Maria Helena Melasecca. Sibani Michael Bose in Berkeley carefully assembled
the manuscript, while Alex Schwartz and Catherine Beebe in Chicago shepherded it into print. We are grateful to them all.