At first blush, capital markets in Latin America and the Caribbean look impressively vibrant. All but a handful of the region's countries boast functioning securities exchanges. But a look at these same stock markets as they stood in December 1996 shows a high degree of concentration.
Brazil represents slightly less than half of the total.
The concentration appears starker still when the market value of individual firms is taken into account. The top 10 companies accounted for almost a quarter of the total. The concentration of Latin America's securities markets has been accentuated by comparatively slow growth in the number of new companies offering shares. Although the opening of new exchanges in many of the region's smaller countries helped boost the total number of listed companies from 1,746 in 1987 to 2,173 in 1996, the number in Brazil, Argentina and Venezuela actually declined during that period.