The Political-Economy of Argentina’s Debacle

In this paper I argue that political-economy considerations –and in particular the identity of the reformers- are central to understanding the Argentine crisis. During the 90´s the main political parties remained attached to populism, and no strong party emerged at the center of the political spectrum. This had two effects in the reform process. First, it severely deteriorated it (efficiency, corruption), reducing the support of the population. Second, when a series of shocks hit the economy the anti-reform camp tried to undo most reforms, and thus convey a message to the population about the “right” model of the world.http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/39980/2/wp594.pd

The Economic Factors Behind Legal Integration: A Jurimetric Analysis of the Latin American Experience

This paper shows that the international harmonization of commercial legal rules and commercial legal standards in Latin America have been the result of very specific legal and economic country-specific factors. The paper proposes that international legal harmonization within a regional bloc of countries is a function of the convergence of three broad conditions: (1) first, the a priori international country-to-country compatibility in the form and scope of their legal rules applied to domestic commercial transactions; (2) second, the emergence and growth of intra sectoral international markets supported by foreign direct investment; and (3) third, the emergence and growth of domestic trade-related industries seeking compatible legal rules in their exporting markets abroad. A jurimetric model is introduced in Part III showing that the drive to seek international legal harmonization has been explained by these specific economic and legal domestic factors.

Sterilization of Capital Inflows and Balance of Payments Crises

Large capital inflows and repeated balance of payments crises (BOPC) associated with their sudden reversal have characterized the emerging market economies during the 90's. Sterilized intervention has been the most common response to capital inflows. This paper links the sterilization efforts with BOPC in a general equilibrium model. We study an economy facing a temporary decrease in the international interest rate, and show that an attempt to sterilize capital inflows leads the economy to a BOPC, while a pure Currency Board would avoid it. We argue that this experiment is relevant to understand the 1994 Mexican currency crisis.Balance of Payments Crises; Sterilization of Capital Inflows; Mexican Crisis

The Political-Economy of Argentina’s Debacle

In this paper I argue that political-economy considerations –and in particular the identity of the reformers- are central to understanding the Argentine crisis. During the 90´s the main political parties remained attached to populism, and no strong party emerged at the center of the political spectrum. This had two effects in the reform process. First, it severely deteriorated it (efficiency, corruption), reducing the support of the population. Second, when a series of shocks hit the economy the anti-reform camp tried to undo most reforms, and thus convey a message to the population about the “right” model of the world.Argentina, Currency Crisis, Political Economy of Reform

Thermoelectric behavior of Ruddlesden-Popper series iridates

The goal of this work is studying the evolution of thermoelectric transport across the members of the Ruddlesden-Popper series iridates Srn+1IrnO3n+1, where a metal-insulator transition driven by bandwidth change occurs, from the strongly insulating Sr2IrO4 to the metallic non Fermi liquid behavior of SrIrO3. Sr2IrO4 (n=1), Sr3Ir2O7 (n=2) and SrIrO3 (n=inf.) polycrystals are synthesized at high pressure and characterized by structural, magnetic, electric and thermoelectric transport analyses. We find a complex thermoelectric phenomenology in the three compounds. Thermal diffusion of charge carriers accounts for the Seebeck behavior of Sr2IrO4, whereas additional drag mechanisms come into play in determining the Seebeck temperature dependence of Sr3Ir2O7 and SrIrO3. These findings reveal close relationship between magnetic, electronic and thermoelectric properties, strong coupling of charge carriers with phonons and spin fluctuations as well as relevance of multiband description in these compounds.Comment: main paper + supplementary informatio

Dark Field Differential Dynamic Microscopy enables the accurate characterization of the roto-translational dynamics of bacteria and colloidal clusters

Micro- and nanoscale objects with anisotropic shape are key components of a variety of biological systems and inert complex materials, and represent fundamental building blocks of novel self-assembly strategies. The time scale of their thermal motion is set by their translational and rotational diffusion coefficients, whose measurement may become difficult for relatively large particles with small optical contrast. Here we show that Dark Field Differential Dynamic Microscopy is the ideal tool for probing the roto-translational Brownian motion of shape anisotropic particles. We demonstrate our approach by successful application to aqueous dispersions of non-motile bacteria and of colloidal aggregates of spherical particles