Sebastian Alvarez

• PhD
• PostDoc Position at St Hilda's College University of Oxford

This book is one of the first historical revisions of the Latin American debt crisis of 1982, exploring recently disclosed archival sources for a number of creditor and debtor institutions. It fills a gap on the national and international historiography on international finance in the 1970s and the Latin American debt crisis of the 1980s. The domes...

After a first experience with banking consortiums, leading Mexican banks gave a further step into foreign finance by opening agencies and branches in major international financial centers. By 1982, the six largest financial institutions of the nation had a direct foot in New York or London and were operating in the Euromarkets on their own. This ch...

Like their counterparts in advanced industrial countries, leading Mexican banks increasingly expanded their international financial activities during the 1970s. Between 1972 and 1974, the three largest banks of the country participated in the creation of London-based consortium banks, giving the first step into the Euromarkets. This chapter explore...

The exposure of industrial countries’ banks to Mexico and Latin America was a salient feature, and a major challenge, of the international debt crisis of 1982. Less known, however, is the fact that the domestic banking sector of some debtor countries involved in foreign finance was also affected by the outbreak of the crisis. This chapter analyzes...

Foreign bank lending was a defining feature of the credit boom leading to the Mexican and Latin American debt crisis of 1982. Although largely dominated by financial institutions from industrial countries, commercial banks from debtor countries were also engaged with international finance and sovereign lending in the decade preceding the crisis. Th...

In 1977, after half a decade of contracting participation in the domestic economy, the Mexican banking sector started to recover and by 1982 it had regained the presence lost in the previous years. Access to international capital by the country’s leading banks played an important role in this process, but it introduced new risks and vulnerabilities...

The presence of Mexican banks in the major world financial centers allowed them to access the massive international interbank market and engaged in Euromarket operations. Through their agencies and branches overseas, parent banks had a direct dollar-based funding channel and could raise wholesale liquidity to expand international activities, namely...

The recent European debt crisis has renewed interest as to why debtor countries honour their foreign debts and subscribe to respectively burdensome rescheduling conditions. While the cost of defaulting in a domestic financial system has been recognised as a main motive for repayment, the factors that cause sovereign states to refrain from debt repu...

This article explores the international expansion of Mexican banks and its implications for the domestic banking system during the decade leading up to the 1982 debt crisis. In contrast to the prevalent focus in the literature on profitability and performance, I examine the asset and liability structure of the banking sector and show that there wer...

This dissertation investigates the involvement of Mexican banks in foreign finance during the decade leading up to the 1982 debt crisis. More specifically, it focuses on a transmission mechanism that links international banking, domestic economy and sovereign finance, which has been overlooked so far: interbank deposits. The dissertation demonstrat...

The international banking crisis that began in 2007 has brought the relationship between international banking activities and financial crises to the forefront. The growing reliance on foreign interbank funding by domestic banks has been recognized as a crucial factor in explaining the banking and sovereign debt crisis currently affecting several p...

La Gran recesión ha vuelto a situar en primer plano la conexión entre la financiación comercial, el comercio internacional y el crecimiento económico. Estudios recientes demuestran que los efectos de la caída de la financiación comercial son marcados, y explican con precisión el reciente descenso del comercio internacional. Nosotros argumentamos qu...