For the first time ever, serious questions have arisen as to the integrity of GDP growth figures published by the Central Bank of Venezuela (BCV). There are suggestions floating that ...

Bad policy is pushing the country into recession, and we see no rescue in sight. Falling inflation rates are coming down only because of the recession—not because of successful anti-inflation...

Venezuela databank...

Sometimes no news is bad news. A case in point is that we have scarcely changed our bleak outlook for the Venezuelan economy since our April 2010 forecast. Our base case scenario, ...

Facing the World. Colombia is taking all necessary steps to force Chávez to either act against guerrillas and drug traffickers or face unwanted consequences....

Plagued by flaws, Sitme will prove fleeting, we project. But it will probably survive at least till the September 26 parliamentary elections. This is apt, given that the program seems ...

President Chávez is becoming more radical and polarizing than ever. This seems odd. Why alienate the population when elections are nigh? We hypothesize that his greatest fear is that ...

The recent reform of the Illicit Foreign Exchange Transactions Law (LIC) has given rise to a new segment in the foreign exchange market: the BCV dollar market. This segment replaces ...

The new Illicit Foreign Transactions Law (LIC) passed by National Assembly on 13 May 2010 places all transactions in securities denominated or settled in foreign currency under the ...

The continuous and apparently unstoppable rise in the price of the dollar in the swap market and the surprisingly high April inflation reading got the government out of its policy ...

By staging military parades and organizing children into “communications guerrilla” brigades charged with monitoring the media, the government is portraying a more fearsome military ...

In our base-case scenario for 2010–2011, Venezuela's power play heightens conflict. Because the electricity crisis and the policy framework push growth rates down and inflation rates ...

The September elections and the electricity crisis could be game changers. Elections will be one if opposition deputies reach a critical mass capable of starting the struggle to regain ...

It's hard to pinpoint where the red line is, but President Hugo Chávez is moving closer to the point where something will have to give. His government has dismantled market capitalism ...

In Venezuela, conflicts are heating up, as Chávez actions and rhetoric anger people. To deflect blame for the inflation surge that will surely follow upon the January 8 bolivar devaluation,

Chávez’s decision to devalue now tells us that the benefit of making significant amounts of money immediately available to the government to fund the 2010 campaign for the legislative ...

2010 will be dominated by the September 2010 legislative elections. This event will drive policy, creating incentives for strong spending and the postponement of measures that might ...