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

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

Is the Glass Half Empty or Half Full? Enrollment, Graduation, and Dropout Rates in Latin America

We use 292 household surveys from 18 Latin American countries to document patterns in secondary school graduation rates over the period 1990-2010. We find that enrollment and graduation rates increased during that period while dropout rates decreased. We provide two types of explanations for these patterns. Countries implemented changes on the supply side to increase access, by increasing the resources allocated to education and designing policies to help students staying in school. Despite this progress, graduation rates are still generally low, there still persist remarkable gaps in educational outcomes in terms of gender, income quintiles, and regions within countries, and the quality of education is generally low

¿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

Productivity and Resource Misallocation in Latin America

Total factor productivity (TFP) in Latin America has not increased since the mid- 1970s, and in many countries it has declined. Moreover, resource misallocation can lower aggregate TFP. This paper presents evidence based on firm-level data from 10 Latin American countries to quantify the heterogeneity of firm productivity and the degree of resource misallocation within countries. Productivity heterogeneity and resource misallocation are found to be much larger than in the United States. Achieving an efficient allocation of resources could boost manufacturing TFP between 45 percent and 127 percent depending on the countries and years considered

¿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