Report on the Latin American economy : second half of 2018

Abstract

This article reviews, as usual, the recent performance of the main Latin American economies, in a setting where the emerging economies have faced a series of adverse shocks. There has been a considerable downward revision of the growth forecast for the region in 2018, driven mainly by idiosyncratic factors: the severe recession in Argentina and a slower-than-expected recovery in Brazil. Furthermore, the risks remain predominantly on the downside. One of these risks – a tightening of the pace of monetary policy normalisation in the United States – is analysed in more detail in the article