Export Transitions

In this paper I use a broad multi-country dataset to analyze divergent experiences in export orientation over time. First, I use transition probability matrices for comparing how countries move across the world distribution for different time periods. I find that transitions toward high export ratios have been mainly experienced by Asian countries, but also some reformers like Mexico and Chile have been able to increase their exports significantly. Countries making transitions toward low export ratios are mainly from Africa, but these countries only constitute a half of economies with bad export performance. I focus then on which structural factors may be important for long-run transitions. The results suggest that more open economies and those with better institutions are more likely to move to high export ratios in the long-run. Finally, I explore within-country experiences for identifying episodes of export transitions. Using an event study methodology, I find a very weak association between export transitions and economic growth and investment rate. In contrast, my results suggest that transitions are potentially driven by improvements in financial development. Finally, favorable terms of trade, increments in productivity, and reductions in exchange rate distortions are not found to be a catalyst for export transitions. l II) could be helpful on this task.

Weyl transverse gravity (WTDiff) and the cosmological constant

Scale invariant (transverse) gravitational theories are introduced. They are invariant under pure metric rescalings (i.e. the matter fields are inert under those). This symmetry forbids the presence of a cosmological constant. Those theories are not invariant under the full set of diffeomorphisms, but only with respect to those locally characterized by the fact that their generator is transverse \pd_\a \xi^\a=0.Comment: 11 page

Paths of Development, Specialization, and Natural Resources Abundance

This paper addresses three main questions; how can a country specialized in primary goods become an exporter of manufacturing goods? How does factor abundance affect the possibilities of achieving comparative advantages in manufactures? Does the type of natural resource abundance make any difference to the path of development? Based on factor-endowment-driven specialization, we study the trade patterns along the paths of development (defined as capital accumulation) for a large sample of countries in the last four decades. Consistently with the idea that countries are located in different cones of diversification, we find that net exports are a non-linear function of the capital/labor ratio of the economy. The pattern of gaining comparative advantages in manufacturing goods as a country develops depends not only on whether it is natural resource abundant or not, but also on its type of natural resources abundance. This paper shows that mineralabundant countries are positioned in a diversification cone with low levels of capital per worker and they are net importers of all manufacturing goods. In contrast to countries with comparative advantages in forestry and agricultural products, mining countries are the least likely group to change their specialization pattern towards manufacturing goods. On the other hand when we use human capital instead of physical, we find that mineral abundant countries will move to a cone where they produce and export capital intensive manufactures. The forest abundant countries will attain comparative advantages in machinery as they accumulate human capital. Looking at the mineral abundant countries we find some differences in the path of development for oil exporters and non-oil exporters.

The China Phenomenon: Price, Quality or Variety?

China’s exports have skyrocketed in the last 15 years. We use highly-disaggregated import data from Chile between 1990 and 2005 to decompose the causes of such export performance. We find that China’s high export growth is mainly explained by an increase in the quality of its varieties relative to those from the rest of the world, which raises world demand for its varieties as well as it increases the number of varieties produced in China. Our results show that Chinese products are cheaper than those from the rest of the world, but the small decline in their relative price has a negligible contribution to the growth of China’s penetration. There is heterogeneity across products, however. The increase in quality and the decline in product prices are more pronounced for highly-differentiated products. Because international product-price differences reflect productivity and factor cost differences, these results reveal that productivity growth has been higher in highlydifferentiated products, which coincides with the pattern of quality growth. Therefore, we conjecture that productivity growth is behind the increase in the quality of Chinese varieties as well as the raise in number of varieties produced and exported by China.

On the Sources of China’s Export Growth

We use detailed data on Chilean imports between 1990 and 2005 to analyze the causes of China’s import penetration relative to other countries. China exports a wide variety of products. The growth in China’s exports, however, is mainly driven by an increase in import penetration within common product categories with the rest of the world—the intensive margin—rather than by an increase in the number of product varieties exported—the extensive margin. Surprisingly, the growth in the intensive margin is explained by an increase in exported quantities without a significant fall in the relative price of Chinese varieties. This apparent paradox suggests that an increase in either the number of unobserved varieties or the willingness to pay for Chinese products—an increase in the relative quality of Chinese products—is the driving force behind China’s export performance. We present evidence regarding China’s export prices, the similarity of China’s export bundle to that of developed countries, and the relative quality of Chinese products, to conclude that improvements in the quality of Chinese products is an important dimension of Chinese export growth.

Entry into Export Markets and Product Quality Differences

Using a rich dataset of Chilean exporters, we analyze several issues related to the relationship between entry into export markets and product quality. We find that every year a large number of new exporting relationships are initiated, with either new firms or existent ones that begin exporting, but the survival rate of these entries is very low and declines over time. Using unit values as a proxy for product quality, our estimations show that entry is generally associated with higher product quality. This higher product quality, however, tends to decline over time and eventually disappears three years after entry. To better identify this effect, we explore whether there are systematic differences across sectors. As expected, for sectors in which quality differentiation may be important, our findings reveal that reference-price and differentiated products show a higher price in the year of entry and it takes longer to converge to the incumbent prices. These results hold after controlling for potential sample selection bias.

A photometric comprehensive study of circumnuclear star forming rings: the sample

We present photometry in U, B, V, R and I continuum bands and in H$\alpha$ and H$\beta$ emission lines for a sample of 336 circumnuclear star forming regions (CNSFR) located in early type spiral galaxies with different levels of activity in their nuclei. They are nearby galaxies, with distances less than 100 Mpc, 60\% of which are considered as interacting objects. This survey of 20 nuclear rings aims to provide insight into their star formation properties as age, stellar population and star formation rate. Extinction corrected H$\alpha$ luminosities range from $1.3\times 10^{38}$ to $4\times 10^{41} erg s^{-1}$, with most of the regions showing values between 39.5 $\leq log L(H\alpha) \leq$ 40, which implies masses for the ionizing clusters higher than $2\times 10^{5} M_\odot$. H$\alpha$ and H$\beta$ images have allowed us to obtain an accurate measure of extinction. We have found an average value of A$_V$ = 1.85 magnitudes. (U-B) colour follows a two maximum distribution around (U-B)$\simeq$ -0.7, and -0.3; (R-I) also presents a bimodal behaviour, with maximum values of 0.6 and 0.9. Reddest (U-B) and (R-I) regions appear in non-interacting galaxies. Reddest (R-I) regions lie in strongly barred galaxies. For a significant number of HII regions the observed colours and equivalent widths are not well reproduced by single burst evolutionary theoretical models.Comment: Accepted for publication in MNRAS. Accepted 15 May 2015. Received, 21 April 201

Multinational Firms and Productivity Catching-Up: The Case Of Chilean Manufacturing

In this paper we study total factor productivity (TFP) catching-up using 20 years of plant-level data for Chilean manufacturing. The paper addresses two key issues: First, we analyze whether there is evidence that low productivity plants experience larger TFP growth than those closer to the technology frontier. Second, we investigate the role of multinational plants in accelerating the catching-up process by non-frontier domestic plants. Our results show evidence of productivity catching-up, and that a higher presence of multinationals positively contributes to this phenomenon. There findings are consistent with the idea of technology spillovers from high to low productivity plants or that a higher presence of multinationals increase competitiveness and productivity in domestic markets.