501 research outputs found
Exchange rate appreciations, labor market rigidities, and informality
This paper works at the interface of the literature exploring the raison d'etre of the informal labor market and that explaining the real exchange rate appreciations occurring in many Latin American countries during periods of reform. The authors first build a small country-Australian style model where the informal sector is seen as an unregulated non-tradables sector, augmented by heterogeneity in entrepreneurial ability and capital adjustment costs. They then examine the behavior of the model with and without a formal sector rigidity. It shows that the co-movements of relative formal/informal incomes, formal/informal sector size, and the real exchange rate can offer insight into the level of distortion in the labor market and the source of exchange rate fluctuations. The paper then explores time series data from Brazil, Colombia and Mexico using multivariate co-integration techniques to establish what"regime"each country is in at various periods of time. Mexico appears to be relatively undistorted and the 1987-92 appreciation appears to be largely a function of a boom in the non-tradables sector rather than wage inertia. In spite of a secular expansion of the informal sector there is little evidence of dualism or of a rigidity driven appreciation of the Real, from 1993-1996. Post 1995 Colombia corresponds to a classic segmented labor market and an appreciation partly driven by labor market rigidities. Graphical analysis suggests that neither the Argentine appreciation (1988-1992) or the celebrated Chilean appreciation (1975-1982) were driven by inertial forcesLabor Policies,Environmental Economics&Policies,Banks&Banking Reform,Economic Theory&Research,Fiscal&Monetary Policy,Environmental Economics&Policies,Economic Theory&Research,Economic Stabilization,Macroeconomic Management,Banks&Banking Reform
Informal Labor Markets and Macroeconomic Fluctuations
This paper examines the adjustment of developing country labor markets to macroeconomic shocks. It models a two sector labor market: a formal salaried (tradable) sector that may or may not be affected by union or legislation induced wage rigidities, and an unregulated (nontradable) self-employment sector facing liquidity constraints to entry. This is embedded in a standard small economy macro model that permits the derivation of patterns of comovement among relative salaried/self-employed incomes, salaried/self-employed sector sizes and the real exchange rate with respect to different types of shocks in contexts with and without wage rigidities. The paper then explores time series data from Argentina, Brazil, Colombia and Mexico to test for cointegrating relationships corresponding to the patterns predicted by theory. We identify two types of regime. The first corresponds to periods where demand shocks to the nontradable sector offer new opportunities to (informal) entrepreneurs, the informal sector expands ?procyclically,? and the exchange rate overshoots toward appreciation in the short run, or remains at its productivity determined levels. The second corresponds to periods of negative shocks to the formal salaried sector in the presence of wage rigidities where the sector plays a more traditional ?buffer? role during downturns. --Informality,Labor market dynamics,Self-employment,Real exchange rates
Informality and Macroeconomic Fluctuations
This paper examines the adjustment of developing country labor markets to macroeconomic shocks. It models as having two sectors: a formal salaried (tradable) sector that may or may not be affected by union or legislation induced wage rigidities, and an informal (nontradable) self-employment sector facing liquidity constraints to entry. This is embedded in a standard small economy macro model that permits the derivation of patterns of comovement among relative salaried/self-employed incomes, salaried/self-employed sector sizes and the real exchange rate with respect to different types of shocks in contexts with and without wage rigidities. The paper then explores time series data from Argentina, Brazil, Colombia and Mexico to test for cointegrating relationships corresponding to the patterns predicted by theory. We confirm episodes of expansion of informal self-employment consistent with the traditional segmentation views. However, we also identify episodes consistent with the sectoral expansion being driven by relative demand or productivity shocks to the nontradables sector that lead to âprocyclicalâ behavior of the informal self-employed sector.informality, labor market dynamics, self-employment, real exchange rates
Spectrophotometric Redshifts. A New Approach to the Reduction of Noisy Spectra and its Application to GRB090423
We have developed a new method, close in philosophy to the photometric
redshift technique, which can be applied to spectral data of very low
signal-to-noise ratio. Using it we intend to measure redshifts while minimising
the dangers posed by the usual extraction techniques. GRB afterglows have
generally very simple optical spectra over which the separate effects of
absorption and reddening in the GRB host, the intergalactic medium, and our own
Galaxy are superimposed. We model all these effects over a series of template
afterglow spectra to produce a set of clean spectra that reproduce what would
reach our telescope. We also model carefully the effects of the
telescope-spectrograph combination and the properties of noise in the data,
which are then applied on the template spectra. The final templates are
compared to the two-dimensional spectral data, and the basic parameters
(redshift, spectral index, Hydrogen absorption column) are estimated using
statistical tools. We show how our method works by applying it to our data of
the NIR afterglow of GRB090423. At z ~ 8.2, this was the most distant object
ever observed. We use the spectrum taken by our team with the Telescopio
Nazionale Galileo to derive the GRB redshift and its intrinsic neutral Hydrogen
column density. Our best fit yields z=8.4^+0.05/-0.03 and N(HI)<5x10^20 cm^-2,
but with a highly non-Gaussian uncertainty including the redshift range z [6.7,
8.5] at the 2-sigma confidence level. Our method will be useful to maximise the
recovered information from low-quality spectra, particularly when the set of
possible spectra is limited or easily parameterisable while at the same time
ensuring an adequate confidence analysis.Comment: 6 pages, 6 figures. Accepted for publication in Astronomy and
Astrophysic
Informality and macroeconomic fluctuations
This paper examines the adjustment of developing country labor markets to macroeconomic shocks. It models as having two sectors: a formal salaried (tradable) sector that may or may not be affected by union or legislation induced wage rigidities, and an informal (nontradable) self-employment sector facing liquidity constraints to entry. This is embedded in a standard small economy macro model that permits the derivation of patterns of comovement among relative salaried/self-employed incomes, salaried/self-employed sector sizes and the real exchange rate with respect to different types of shocks in contexts with and without wage rigidities. The paper then explores time series data from Argentina, Brazil, Colombia and Mexico to test for cointegrating relationships corresponding to the patterns predicted by theory. We confirm episodes of expansion of informal self-employment consistent with the traditional segmentation views. However, we also identify episodes consistent with the sectoral expansion being driven by relative demand or productivity shocks to the nontradables sector that lead to procyclical behavior of the informal self-employed sector
Informal Labor Markets and Macroeconomic Fluctuations
This paper examines the adjustment of developing country labor markets to macroeconomic shocks. It models a two sector labor market: a formal salaried (tradable) sector that may or may not be affected by union or legislation induced wage rigidities, and an unregulated (nontradable) self-employment sector facing liquidity constraints to entry. This is embedded in a standard small economy macro model that permits the derivation of patterns of comovement among relative salaried/self-employed incomes, salaried/self-employed sector sizes and the real exchange rate with respect to different types of shocks in contexts with and without wage rigidities. The paper then explores time series data from Argentina, Brazil, Colombia and Mexico to test for cointegrating relationships corresponding to the patterns predicted by theory. We identify two types of regime. The first corresponds to periods where demand shocks to the nontradable sector offer new opportunities to (informal) entrepreneurs, the informal sector expands ?procyclically,? and the exchange rate overshoots toward appreciation in the short run, or remains at its productivity determined levels. The second corresponds to periods of negative shocks to the formal salaried sector in the presence of wage rigidities where the sector plays a more traditional ?buffer? role during downturns
Testing the gamma-ray burst variability/peak luminosity correlation on a Swift homogeneous sample
We test the gamma-ray burst correlation between temporal variability and peak
luminosity of the -ray profile on a homogeneous sample of 36 Swift/BAT
GRBs with firm redshift determination. This is the first time that this
correlation can be tested on a homogeneous data sample. The correlation is
confirmed, as long as the 6 GRBs with low luminosity (<5x10^{50} erg s^{-1} in
the rest-frame 100-1000 keV energy band) are ignored. We confirm that the
considerable scatter of the correlation already known is not due to the
combination of data from different instruments with different energy bands, but
it is intrinsic to the correlation itself. Thanks to the unprecedented
sensitivity of Swift/BAT, the variability/peak luminosity correlation is tested
on low-luminosity GRBs. Our results show that these GRBs are definite outliers.Comment: Accepted for Publication in MNRAS. 10 pages, 5 figures, 3 table
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