Do Local Economic Development Programs Work? Evidence from the Federal Empowerment Zone Program

This paper evaluates the impact of Round I of the federal urban Empowerment Zone (EZ) program on neighborhood level labor and housing market outcomes over the period 1994-2000. Using four decades of Census data in conjunction with information on the proposed boundaries of rejected EZs, we find that neighborhoods receiving EZ designation experienced substantial improvements in labor market conditions and moderate increases in rents relative to rejected and future zones. These effects were accompanied by small changes in the demographic composition of the neighborhoods, though evidence from disaggregate Census tabulations suggests that these changes account for little of the observed improvements.Program evaluation, Local economic development, Empowerment zones

New Evidence on the Finite Sample Properties of Propensity Score Matching and Reweighting Estimators

Currently available asymptotic results in the literature suggest that matching estimators have higher variance than reweighting estimators. The extant literature comparing the finite sample properties of matching to specific reweighting estimators, however, has concluded that reweighting performs far worse than even the simplest matching estimator. We resolve this puzzle. We show that the findings from the finite sample analyses are not inconsistent with asymptotic analysis, but are very specific to particular choices regarding the implementation of reweighting, and fail to generalize to settings likely to be encountered in actual empirical practice. In the DGPs studied here, reweighting typically outperforms propensity score matching.treatment effects, propensity score, semiparametric efficiency

Do Local Economic Development Programs Work? Evidence from the Federal Empowerment Zone Program

This paper evaluates the impact of Round I of the federal urban Empowerment Zone (EZ) program on neighborhood level labor and housing market outcomes over the period 1994-2000. Using four decades of Census data in conjunction with information on the proposed boundaries of rejected EZs, we find that neighborhoods receiving EZ designation experienced substantial improvements in labor market conditions and moderate increases in rents relative to rejected and future zones. These effects were accompanied by small changes in the demographic composition of the neighborhoods, though evidence from disaggregate Census tabulations suggests that these changes account for little of the observed improvements

¿Qué entendemos por violencia institucional?: Hacia una definición jurídica de la violencia institucional

El presente trabajo indaga en definiciones construidas en torno a la categoría “violencia institucional”. Para esto es necesario una breve historicidad, desde las primeras denuncias de “gatillo fácil”, la “Masacre de Budge” hasta la construcción de la Campaña contra la Violencia Institucional en el ámbito del Congreso de la Nación. Abordaremos, las definiciones construidas por el activismo como las institucionales construidas como necesidad de diseñar políticas públicas. Para centrarnos en el discurso jurídico, específicamente su relación con el derecho penal y el derecho internacional público de derechos humanos. Construyendo una definición jurídica que denote los distintos delitos que conforman este fenómeno.Fil: Busso, Matias Nahuel. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Saavedra 15. Centro de Estudios e Investigaciones Laborales; Argentin

Three Essays on Semiparametric Methods for the Evaluation of Social Programs.

This dissertation consists of three essays whose unifying topical theme is the study and application of semiparametric methods for the evaluation of social programs. The first essay evaluates the federal urban Empowerment Zone (EZ) program using an inverse probability weighting (IPW) difference-in-differences estimator. We use four decades of Census data on urban neighborhoods in conjunction with information on the proposed boundaries of rejected EZs. We find that neighborhoods receiving EZ designation experienced substantial improvements in labor market conditions and moderate increases in rents relative to rejected and future Empowerment Zones. No evidence exists of large scale gentrification. The second essay explores the finite sample properties of several semiparametric estimators of average treatment effects, including IPW, matching and double robust estimators. We first show that all these estimators can be understood as weighted least squares. This result is used to explain the equivalency of these estimators. Then we study the implications of the assumption of strict overlap in the distribution of propensity scores for treatment and control units. When there is good overlap, IPW estimators are preferred on bias grounds and attain the semiparametric efficiency bound even for samples of size n=100. When overlap is close to failing, none of the estimators examined perform well, and standard asymptotics may be a poor guide to finite sample distribution of the estimators. In the third essay I propose a variance estimator of IPW estimators of average treatment effects. I note that IPW is a sequential estimator which, in cases in which a parametric propensity score model is assumed, has a simple expression of the asymptotic variance. Using Monte Carlo simulations I find that tests based on the proposed variance estimator have good finite sample size and power compared to competing inference strategies. Tests based on the percentile-t bootstrap method have very similar size and power properties. I interpret this as an indication that the bootstrap percentile-t method is not providing any refinement to the proposed asymptotic variance, which indicates that the proposed variance estimator is a good enough approximation to the true variance of the treatment effect estimator.Ph.D.EconomicsUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/61725/1/matiasb_1.pd

¿Qué entendemos por violencia institucional?: Hacia una definición jurídica de la violencia institucional

El presente trabajo indaga en definiciones construidas en torno a la categoría “violencia institucional”. Para esto es necesario una breve historicidad, desde las primeras denuncias de “gatillo fácil”, la “Masacre de Budge” hasta la construcción de la Campaña contra la Violencia Institucional en el ámbito del Congreso de la Nación. Abordaremos, las definiciones construidas por el activismo como las institucionales construidas como necesidad de diseñar políticas públicas. Para centrarnos en el discurso jurídico, específicamente su relación con el derecho penal y el derecho internacional público de derechos humanos. Construyendo una definición jurídica que denote los distintos delitos que conforman este fenómeno.Fil: Busso, Matias Nahuel. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Saavedra 15. Centro de Estudios e Investigaciones Laborales; Argentin

The Impact of Migration in Latin America and the Caribbean. A Review of Recent Evidence

This paper summarizes recent evidence on the effects of migration on a variety of outcomes including labor markets, education, health, crime and prejudice, international trade, assimilation, family separation, diaspora networks, and return migration. Given the lack of studies looking at migration flows between developing countries, this paper contributes to fill a gap in the literature by providing evidence of the impact of South-South migration in general and for the Latin American countries in particular. The evidence highlighted in this summary provides useful insights for designing policies to leverage the developmental outcomes of migration while limiting its potential negative effects

Legal aspects of police lethality

En Argentina al menos 3609 personas perdieron la vida en manos de la fuerza de seguridad entre 1996 a 2018. Si bien existen multiplicidad de trabajos sobre la letalidad policial, la mayoría se encuentran en el campo de la sociología y la antropología, en lo que respecta a doctrina jurídica son escasos los trabajos recientes. Como contracara, el número de casos que quedan impunes es abrumador, generando un nivel importante de desprestigio y desconfianza sobre el poder judicial desoyendo la demanda de víctimas y la sociedad en su conjunto. La ineficacia de ese accionar responde muchas veces a creencias y posicionamientos de operadores judiciales como a la falta de herramientas teóricas. Por ello, el trabajo buscará contribuir en la construcción de herramientas jurídicas, a través del análisis jurisprudencial y de normativa internacional y nacional, que permitan el juzgamiento de estos casos reduciendo los índices de impunidad.In Argentina, at least 3609 people lost their lives at the hands of the security force between 1996 and 2018. Although there are multiple works on police lethality, most are in the field of sociology and anthropology, in respect of a legal doctrine, recent works are scarce. On the other hand, the number of cases that go unpunished is overwhelming, generating a significant level of loss of prestige and distrust of the judiciary, ignoring the demand of victims and society as a whole. The ineffectiveness of this action often responds to beliefs and positions of judicial operators as well as to the lack of theoretical tools. Therefore, the work will seek to contribute to the construction of legal tools, through jurisprudential analysis and international and national regulations, that allow the prosecution of these cases, reducing the rates of impunity.Fil: Busso, Matias Nahuel. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Saavedra 15. Centro de Estudios e Investigaciones Laborales; Argentina. Universidad de Buenos Aires; Argentin

Assessing the Incidence and Efficiency of a Prominent Place Based Policy

This paper empirically assesses the incidence and efficiency of Round I of the federal urban Empowerment Zone (EZ) program using confidential microdata from the Decennial Census and the Longitudinal Business Database. To ground our welfare analysis, we develop a heterogeneous agent general equilibrium model in which the distortions generated by place-based policies depend upon a set of reduced form elasticities which our empirical work centers on estimating. Using rejected and future applicants to the EZ program as controls we find that EZ designation substantially increased employment in zone neighborhoods, particularly for zone residents. The program also generated wage increases for workers from zone neighborhoods worth approximately $320M per year. Based upon estimates of the number of jobs created for zone residents, we find that EZ employment credits generated deadweight costs equal to (at most) seven percent of their flow cost.

Preferences for redistribution in Latin America

This chapter examines the redistributive preferences of Latin Americans and investigates the factors that shape them. Using a detailed survey in eight Latin American countries, the study sheds new light on redistributive preferences and explores which aspects of redistribution are more popular and among which groups. The roles of selfinterest, perceptions of inequality, values, and the relationship between citizens and the public sphere in shaping attitudes to redistribution are discussed