Optimal Technology, Development and the role of Government

This paper highlights the effect of the presence of the goverment and its redistribution policy in the technology adoption decision. As a result it helps explain the differences in skill premium patterns across the North Atlantic between developed economies such as the US and Continental Europe.Taxes, skill biased technological change; skill premium; endogenous technology; inequality

Former Communist Countries and their transition to Capitalism

This paper uses the technology adoption general equilibrium model developed by Moscoso Boedo (2006) to analyze the transition for the countries of the former USSR and Eastern Europe. There the real output displayed a U-shapped pattern together with increases in inequality, which are features matched by the modelTransition economies, skill biased technological change; skill premium; endogenous technology; inequality

Optimal Technology and Development

Skill intensive technologies seem to be adopted by rich countries rather than poor ones. Related to that observation, the ratio of wages of skilled to unskilled workers - the skill premium - shows two important features over time and across countries. In the US the skill premium decreased during the first half of the 20th century and it increased after 1950, evolving according to a U shaped pattern. On the other hand, the same measure across countries around 1990 is hump shaped when countries are ordered by GDP per worker. By modeling the decisions for factor accumulation and technology adoption, this paper gives a systematic explanation as to why we see ever more skill intensive technologies being adopted both over time in the US and across countries. The model developed here endogenously generates predictions for the skill premium that are consistent with both the US and international observations under the same set of parameter valuesskill biased technological change; skill premium,endogenous technology; inequality

Sectoral Reallocation, Growth and Labor Income Inequality

This paper focuses on the transitory relationship between output level and Income inequality. As a result of either permanent or transitory sectoral technological shocks the economy will adjust to a new steady state equilibrium, but during the transition the dynamics of wages and workers will generate departures from the steady state level of income inequality.inequality, productivity

Evaluating the Effects of Entry Regulations and Firing Costs on International Income Differences

This paper analyzes the effects of entry regulations and firing costs on cross-country differences in income and productivity. We construct a general equilibrium industry- dynamics model and quantitatively evaluate it using the cross-country data on entry costs and firing costs. Entry costs lower overall productivity in an economy by keeping low- productivity establishments in operation and making the establishment size inefficiently large. Firing costs lower productivity by reducing the reallocation of labor from low- productivity establishments to high-productivity establishments. The linear regression of the data on the model prediction accounts for 27% of the cross-sectional variation in total factor productivity. Moving the level of entry costs and firing costs from the U.S. level to that of the average of low income countries (countries with a Gross National Income below 2% of the U.S. level) reduces TFP by 27% in the model without capital, and by 34% in the model with capital and capital adjustment costs.Entry cost, firing cost,international income differences,industry dynamics

Financial Structure, Informality and Development

This is a theory of total factor productivity based on measured capital market im- perfections and costs of creating and operating formal sector firms. We develop a firm dynamics model with endogenous formal and informal sectors where firms face a technol- ogy adoption opportunity. The model predicts that countries with a low degree of debt enforcement and high costs of formality are characterized by low allocative efficiency and a large share output produced by low productivity firms in the informal sector. We find that this mechanism is quantitatively important. When frictions are parameterized using the World Bank Doing Business database, the model explains up to 60% of total factor productivity differences between the US and developing economies.Financial Structure, Informal Sector, Productivity, Policy Distortions

Intangibles and Endogenous Firm Volatility over the Business Cycle

We are interested in the endogenous determination of firm level idiosyncratic volatility and its evolution over the business cycle. Using data from the Kauffman Firm Survey and Compustat, we find that idiosyncratic volatility at the firm level is negatively correlated with intangible expenditures (e.g. advertising, marketing, brand development, R&D). We also find that intangible expenses are highly pro-cyclical and that firm level volatility is counter-cyclical. To understand this mechanism, we propose a firm dynamics model with endogenous market participation. Firms that incur higher intangible expenses are able expand the firm and end up diversifying market-specific demand shocks by servicing more markets. The model is driven only by first moment shocks (i.e. shocks to aggregate TFP) and is able to capture the relationship between intangibles and risk as well as their cyclical properties.Endogenous idiosyncratic risk

La revolución silenciosa de la mujer rural en el Campo de Gibraltar. Despertares entre el conflicto y la negociación

Una versión de este documento está publicada en la Revista de Fomento Social, nº. 231. Vol. 58, pp.501-524.El presente artículo es fruto de un estudio realizado por el Instituto de Estudios Sociales de Andalucía (IESA-CSIC), para la Consejería de Agricultura y Pesca de la Junta de Andalucía. El objetivo de este estudio era la reconstrucción de una experiencia singular de desarrollo —el proyecto Mejorana—, llevada a cabo en el área rural de la comarca del Campo de Gibraltar, por parte de la Federación de Asociaciones de Mujeres El Despertar. Se pretendía conocer cómo este tipo de experiencias puede contribuir en el cambio social de las estructuras y las relaciones de género. Mediante la explotación de varios estudios realizados anteriormente por éste y otros centros de investigación y a través de la aplicación de técnicas de carácter cualitativas se obtuvo información con la que conocer cómo se produce este proceso de cambio y cuáles son los resultados que se desprenden de la experiencia.Peer reviewe

Universal geometrical scaling of the elliptic flow

The presence of scaling variables in experimental observables provide very valuable indications of the dynamics underlying a given physical process. In the last years, the search for geometric scaling, that is the presence of a scaling variable which encodes all geometrical information of the collision as well as other external quantities as the total energy, has been very active. This is motivated, in part, for being one of the genuine predictions of the Color Glass Condensate formalism for saturation of partonic densities. Here we extend these previous findings to the case of experimental data on elliptic flow. We find an excellent scaling for all centralities and energies, from RHIC to LHC, with a simple generalization of the scaling previously found for other observables and systems. Interestingly the case of the photons, difficult to reconcile in most formalisms, nicely fit the scaling curve. We discuss the possible interpretations of this finding in terms of initial or final state effects.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures, accepted for publication in Phys Rev