The story of interwar Latin American finance is one of high inflation, exchange rate crisis, and debt default. Today, once again, the Latin American financial scene attracts attention and demands analysis. The decade of the 1970s brought a huge increase in Latin American borrowing from the world capital market and greater global financial integration. While the primary focus is on contemporary Latin America the essays brought together in this volume are of wider applicability, and attempt to bring a unifying methodological approach to the analysis of financial problems in developing, open economies.This volume is the result of the National Bureau of Economic Research Conference on Financial Policies and the World Capital Market: The Problem of Latin American Countries, held at the Instituto Technologico Autonomo de Mexico in Mexico City, 26-27 March 1981.