The Determinants of Relative Price Variability: Further Evidence from Argentina

This paper analyses the relative price variability (here after, RPVI) for Argentina from 1960 to 1993. We have distinguished a first period (1960-1975) with a moderate and stable inflation and a second one (1975-1993) with four inflation regimes: moderateRelative price Variability, inflation regimes, markov switching model, inflation components

The Relevance of Supply Shocks for Inflation: The Spanish Case

This paper analyses the effects of supply shocks on the Spanish inflation rate. The methodology applied is based on Ball and Mankiw (1995). These authors assume that a good proxy for supply shocks is the third moment of the distribution of price changes, and show that nominal rigidities imply a positive relation between inflation and skewness, that is magnified by the variance of the distribution. The main data used are the monthly consumer price indexes of each region, disaggregated in 57 categories, for the 1993-2005 period. We estimate the relation between mean inflation and the higher moments of the distribution, including several control variables. The analysis has been carried out in two ways: firstly, each region is analysed separately and, secondly, we have used panel data techniques in order to test the homogeneity across regions. Our results point out that Spanish regions show a common pattern with regard to the nominal rigidities detected, and that the Spanish economy is vulnerable to supply shocks.Inflation, nominal rigidities, skewness, supply shocks, Spanish regions

Exploring the links between tourism and quality of institutions

This paper introduces a new perspective on the impacts of tourism on host communi-ties by analyzing the links between tourism specialization and quality of institutions. Our research has two principal aims: firstly, to test the significance and sign of this relationship; and secondly, to explore the channels through which tourism could affect institutional qual-ity. To this end, an econometric analysis is conducted using a sample of 92 countries over the period 1995-2014. The results indicate that there is a significant and positive associa-tion between tourism specialization and institutional quality. Moreover, this relation can be explained through three main channels: level of income, income inequality, and economic freedom.Este trabajo aporta una nueva perspectiva sobre los impactos del turismo analizando las relaciones entre la especialización turística de un país y la calidad de sus instituciones. La investigación plantea dos objetivos: (1) testar empíricamente la significatividad y signo de dichas relaciones y (2) explorar los canales a través de los que se producen. Realizamos un análisis econométrico para 92 países y 20 años. Los principales resultados indican la existencia de una asociación significativa y positiva entre turismo y calidad institucional que se produce principalmente a través de tres canales: nivel de renta, distribución de la renta y libertad económica

Ethnolinguistic Diversity and Education: a Successful Pairing

The many growing migratory flows render our societies increasingly heterogeneous. From the point of view of social welfare, achieving all the positive effects of diversity appears as a challenge for our societies. Nevertheless, while it is true that ethnolinguistic diversity involves costs and benefits, at a country level it seems that the former are greater than the latter, even more so when income inequality between ethnic groups is taken into account. In this respect, there is a vast literature at a macro level that shows that ethnolinguistic fragmentation induces lower income, which leads to the conclusion that part of the difference in income observed between countries can be attributed to their different levels of fragmentation. This paper presents primary evidence of the role of education in mitigating the adverse effects of ethnolinguistic fractionalization on the level of income. While the results show a negative association between fragmentation and income for all indices of diversity, the attainment of a certain level of education, especially secondary and tertiary, manages to reverse the sign of the marginal effect of ethnolinguistic fractionalization on income level. Since current societies are increasingly diverse, these results could have major economic policy implications

Relative Prices and Inflation: New Evidence from Different Inflationary Contexts

This paper analyzes the relationship between inflation and relative price variability, in the direction of the latter, in two countries with very different inflationary experiences: Argentina and Spain. To address this objective, using disaggregated price indexes (Wholesale Price Index for Argentina and Consumer Price Index for Spain), we delimitate different inflationary regimes and compute a set of regressions for each country. Our results suggest evidence in favor of the non-neutrality of inflation (mostly in hyperinflation periods) and do not support neither the menu costs nor the signal extraction approaches. We also detect significant structural changes in the relationship depending on the inflationary regime.inflation, relative price variability, inflation regimes, inflation volatility,expected and unexpected inflation.

Cournot equilibria for socially responsible firms in an uncertain environment

This paper considers firms which compete under Cournot assumptions and in- corporate social responsibility to the evaluation of their results. In our model a socially responsible firm is one which takes into account not only its profits, but also it internalizes its own share of externality and is sensitive to consumer surplus. The analysis of the equilibria to which the firms will eventually arrive is ad- dressed in a framework where the results of the strategic decisions of the firms depend on a future uncertain event and no information about the probability distribution is available.En este trabajo se analiza el efecto de la inclusión de objetivos de responsabilidad social en un modelo de empresas que compiten bajo los supuestos de Cournot. En nuestro modelo una empresa socialmente responsable es aquella que no solo tiene en cuenta sus beneficios, sino que también tiene en cuenta las externalidades positivas generadas por el excedente del consumidor. El análisis de los equilibrios a los que pueden llegar las empresas se realiza en un contexto de incertidumbre. Los resultados de las decisiones estratégicas de las empresas dependen de la realización de un escenario futuro y no se dispone de información sobre las probabilidades de ocurrencia de los posibles escenarios

Do tolerant societies demand better institutions?

The increasing ethnic heterogeneity that many societies are experiencing could be interpreted as a detrimental phenomenon, since empirical literature exists that indicates that higher levels of ethnic fractionalization induce higher levels of corruption. This paper aims to show the role of tolerance in overcoming this harmful effect of ethnic heterogeneity. To this end, a sample of 86 countries is tested for a positive association between ethnic fractionalization and corruption. It is then shown that tolerance offsets this effect through both direct and indirect effects on corruption. In order to analyse the indirect effects, the level of income and the freedom of the press are selected as channels, since these represent two determinants of corruption that are linked to tolerance. Moreover, tolerance and corruption have been modelled as composites. Consequently, Partial Least Squares path modelling (PLS-PM) has been used. For our sample, an index of tolerance towards immigrants and people of different race and an index of corruption are constructed, for which several sources are jointly utilised. Our results appear to indicate that the adverse effect of ethnic fractionalization on corruption is offset by tolerance, which reduces corruption not only directly but also indirectly through the level of income and the freedom of the press

Does diversity in top management teams contribute to organizational performance? The response of IBEX 35 companies

This study contributes to the spread of theoretical and empirical knowledge regarding the Upper Echelons Theory, considering the training and demographic diversity in the Top Management Team (TMT) as a singular characteristic of each company, in our case those belonging to the IBEX35 index. Taking into account the skills of the members, a greater financial performance is expected. Once we obtained the statistical results, we concluded that the inclusion of women in the TMT increased Net Sales and EBITDA. Features such as age, training and nationality are also examined in this work.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

Inflation and Nominal Rigidities in Spanish Regions: The Ball and Mankiw Approach

In this work we centre on the menu cost models of new keynesian economics and, more concretely, on the empirical testing line proposed by Ball and Mankiw (1994, 1995), authors that confront in a monopolistic competition model the explanation of why a shock that affects relative prices also affects mean inflation. Their conclusion is that if mean inflation is near to zero the inflation-skewness relation is stronger than the inflation-variability relation, whereas in the case of a high mean inflation the inflation-variability relation is stronger. Following their approach in our analysis mean inflation is the explained variable, whereas skewness and variability of the distribution of price changes are the main explanatory variables. Our type of analysis has different applications. Firstly, in the case that we confront a relative price shock, if variability and skewness, or some of their transformations, affect inflation it means that our economy is vulnerable, so it makes especially difficult to control inflation. A second application refers to a feasible way to measure core inflation, eliminating from inflation the transitory effects introduced by skewness. Finally, this approach can contribute to test if downward price rigidity is an exogenous phenomenon or the response of optimizing agents that confront menu costs in an inflationary context. Despite these utilities, the Ball and Mankiw (1995) approximation has been rarely applied to Spanish economy.In essence, our work tries to answer whether menu costs à la Ball and Mankiw are plausible for Spanish economy, and whether exists homogeneity of the Spanish regions at this respect. The structure of the work is the following: a) exposition of the basic data and variables, the methodology followed, and the results of our first approximation to Ball and Mankiw (1995); b) consideration of alternative measures of variability and skewness; c) analysis of the role of kurtosis and introduction of two real variables (unemployment and production) as control variables; d) analysis of the causality problem; and e) after the analysis at regional level, we study whether the regions jointly present an homogeneous behavior in this area. Our period of analysis is 1994.01-2001.12. We have chosen this low inflation period because around an annual 4-5% is placed the upper limit for which the model predicts a strong inflation-skewness relation. The essential data that we use come from the series of monthly variation rate of consumer price index, disaggregated by regions and goods and services (33 subgroups), elaborated by the Instituto Nacional de Estadística (INE). In general, we observe an homogeneous behavior of the "structure" of inflation for the Spanish regions. Our analysis corroborates the results of Ball and Mankiw (1995) about the importance of the skewness of the distribution of price changes. Their results in the line that the variability coefficient is higher than the skewness coefficient, and that the estimations containing skewness present a higher coefficient of determination are also confirmed. The significance of skewness and variability at regional level shows the vulnerability of Spanish inflation in terms of relative price shocks

Modeling and analysis of random and stochastic input flows in the chemostat model

In this paper we study a new way to model noisy input flows in the chemostat model, based on the Ornstein-Uhlenbeck process. We introduce a parameter β as drift in the Langevin equation, that allows to bridge a gap between a pure Wiener process, which is a common way to model random disturbances, and no noise at all. The value of the parameter β is related to the amplitude of the deviations observed on the realizations. We show that this modeling approach is well suited to represent noise on an input variable that has to take non-negative values for almost any time.European Commission (EC). Fondo Europeo de Desarrollo Regional (FEDER)Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad (MINECO). EspañaJunta de Andalucí