Exchange Rates, Currency Crises and Recessions - Introduction

Business Cycles, Currency Crises, Developing Countries, Early-warning Systems, Exchange Rate Regimes, Floats, Growth Regressions, Hard Pegs, Openness, Recessions, Volatility

Age-Differentiated Minimum Wages in a Dual Labor Market Model

The fact that minimum wages seem especially binding for young workers has led some countries to adopt age-differentiated minimum wages. We develop a dynamic competitive two-sector labor market model where workers with heterogeneous initial skills gain productivity through experience. We compare two equally binding schemes of single and age-differentiated minimum wages, and find that although differentiated minimum wages result in a more equal distribution of income, such a scheme creates a more unequal distribution of wealth, by forcing less skilled workers to remain longer in the uncovered sector. We also show that relaxing minimum wage solely for young workers may be harmful for less skilled ones.

Inversión Privada e Impuestos Corporativos: Evidencia para Chile

Using annual data from Chile since the beginning of the eighties, we show that an increase in the corporate tax reduces firm's investment. However the impact differs across firm size. In small and medium firms, investment as a fraction of the capital stocInvestment, small size firms, corporate taxation

Currency Crises: Is Central America Different?

In a recent paper we analyzed the determinants of currency crises in a sample of 30 high and middle income countries (Esquivel and Larraín, 1998). In this work we focus on Central America and analyze whether the determinants of currency crises in this region are different from those identified in our previous work. We conclude that they are not, and show that a small set of macroeconomic variables helps to explain the currency crises that took place in Central America between 1976 and 1996. The results of tests applied here support the empirical approach that attempts to explain currency crises by focusing on the behavior of a few macroeconomic indicators. Part of the interest of this result stems from the fact that the Central American countries had an exchange rate system markedly different from that prevailing in the economies that are usually analyzed in similar studies.Central America, exchange rate, currency crises, financial crises

CEO Compensation among Firms Controlled by Large Shareholders: Evidence from Emerging Markets

Using a novel data base for three emerging markets, we find that the type of large shareholder matters for CEO compensation. In particular, we find a compensation premium of about 30 log points for professional (not controller-related) CEOs working in firms controlled by a family compared to firms controlled by other large shareholders. The premium cannot be explained away by standard firm characteristics, observable executive skills (e.g., education or tenure), or the compensation of the CEO in herformer job. The premium comes mostly from family firms with absent founders and when sons are involved.CEO compensation, large shareholders, family firms, emerging markets

Estimating the Output Gap for Chile

In this paper we estimate the output gap and the growth rate of potential output in Chile for the 1986-2005 period, using three different methods: (i) a production function approach, (ii) a Kalman filter approach (univariate and multivariate), and (iii) a structural vector autoregression (SVAR). A high degree of consistency was found among all measures in terms of the sign of the output gap. According to all methods, economic overheating is observed at the beginning of the sample; from 1993 until the Asian Crisis the gap is not very large but is always positive, after the Asian Crisis the gap measures show a smooth tendency to a level close to zero. In order to compare the output gaps generated under the different methodologies, we evaluate the real-time performance of the output gap measures and measure how well the output gap can help forecast future inflation. Regarding the potential output growth, the methods yield broadly similar estimations. Over the complete sample, the average potential growth rate is around 5.6%. However, there seems to be important differences across sub-periods, particularly the growth rate is below the average in the period after the 1999 recession.

El Sombrero Vueltiao Zenú: Retratos del símbolo cultural de la nación en Colombia

Revista Landa, v. 4, n. 1 (2015

La posmodernidad como obra de los hippies

El professor Rodrigo Larraín reflexiona en aquest article al voltant de la gènesi i el sentit de la postmodernitat. Segons la seva línia discursiva, l'emergència de la postmodernitat i dels seus valors més significatius cal entendre-la a partir del fenomen del moviment hippy. Encara que ambdós fenòmens tenen molt pocs elements en comú, l'un és condició de possibilitat de l'altre. La postmodernitat representa, en certa manera, el desgast dels ideals revolucionaris de la cultura dels anys seixanta

Aesthetics and the possibility of an anti-totalitarian communism: reading Bakhtin through the lens of Groys

No abstrac

Filosofía hebraica

Durante muchos años he tenido contacto con judíos, algunos religiosos y otros más escépticos; todos, sin embargo, unidos a ese núcleo cultural tan arraigado que significa "ser judío". Curiosamente, me ha resultado más fácil tener relaciones ecuménicas con los descendientes de Abraham que con otros cristianos acatólicos. He conocido judíos de pensamiento sofisticado o simple, jóvenes como mis alumnos o mayores como algunos compañeros de trabajo. Siendo católico, en última instancia mi fe es semítica; pero, a veces me ha complicado la falta de "eclesiología" del judaísmo