19 the global crisis of 2008-2009 can be attributed to a significant extent to improvements in macroeconomic and financial fundamentals resulting in part from the reforms of the 1990s and early 2000s (more on this later).

The results from econometric studies have to be taken with a large grain of salt considering the numerous and thorny technical complications with the associated empirical tests. These include: small sample sizes; the potential presence of global trends that may affect both reforms and outcomes; difficulties in quantitatively isolating impacts; complications in establishing a causal relationships; problems with adequately measuring reforms, their degree of implementation and, even more, their quality; and the dependency of results on time periods under investigation. In any case, while studies differ in terms of evidence and methodology and their results are difficult to compare, a general pattern emerges: earlier research that focuses on the first half of the 1990s tends to produce results that are more favorable to Consensus-style reforms than later research focusing on the second half of the 1990s.

An important paper that sets the tone in the earlier wave of research is Lora and Barrera (1997). These authors compare 1987-1989 with 1993-1995 and find that structural reforms and their accompanying macro stabilization spurred growth by 2.2 percentage points relative to the growth rate that would have been obtained in the absence of reforms, of which 1.9 points are due to structural reforms and the remainder to stabilization policies. Other studies in this group went further to argue that actual growth performance in the region during the first part of the 1990s was better than that predicted by econometric models. In this sense, growth outcomes are considered to have exceeded expectations—if expectations are defined as those arising from econometric predictions. For example, Easterly, Loayza and Montiel (1997), using a panel from 1960 to 1993 with 70 countries, 16 of them Latin American, find that reforms allowed the region to return to a 2 percent per capita growth rate from 1991 to 1993, a rate that—given country characteristics and the relative depth of the reforms implemented—was higher than predicted by their model. Similarly, Fernández-Arias and Montiel (1997), using a panel from 1961 to 1995 with 69 countries, 18 of which were Latin American, find that the aggregate contribution of stabilization and structural reforms to long-run growth was 1.84 percentage points and argue that, despite a negative external environment, Latin American growth during the 1990s was greater than otherwise predicted.

While the generation of early research converges on the view that reforms boosted growth in the first half of the 1990s by about 2 percentage points,<sup>25</sup> later studies have a much less favorable assessment. For example, Lora and Panizza (2002) compare 1985-1987 with 19971999 and find that the reforms lifted growth in the latter period by only 0.6 percentage points. They conclude that the beneficial impact of reforms decreased as the 1990s unfolded and that their effects were largely transitory, raising the level of income but not the rate of growth. A series of studies spearheaded by ECLAC also yielded very modest results and Ffrench-Davis (2000) calls for the reforming of the reforms. Escaith and Morley (2001) find a minimal and non-

> 25 This result was confirmed later on by Loayza, Fajnzylber and Calderón (2005) who, comparing 1986-1990 with 1996-1999, estimated that structural reforms and accompanying macro stabilization policies had a 1.9 percentage point average impact on growth for Latin America for the decade as a whole.  Loayza, Fajnzylber and Calderón (2005) is, however, an exception among the studies that appeared after 1997.