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.

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.

Trade Reforms and Manufacturing Industry in Chile

The Chilean economy underwent a deep structural change in the mid-seventies, through several economic reforms. Among these, the most impressive one was trade liberalization. This process caused a string of bankruptcies in the manufacturing industry and a reduction in the share of this sector in GDP, which some authors have used to imply that Chile has become a less industrialized economy. This paper describes the main policy changes that are relevant to understand the evolution of the manufacturing industry in Chile after the reforms, and analyzes the evolution of productivity using plant-level data. Our findings challenge the hypothesis that trade liberalization stifled the manufacturing sector and pushed the economy toward exporting raw materials. Also, our results show that the Chilean industry, after these economic reforms, became more efficient and competitive.

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, 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 reduce 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.Unit-value exports, product quality, price dynamics

An Active Instance-based Machine Learning method for Stellar Population Studies

We have developed a method for fast and accurate stellar population parameters determination in order to apply it to high resolution galaxy spectra. The method is based on an optimization technique that combines active learning with an instance-based machine learning algorithm. We tested the method with the retrieval of the star-formation history and dust content in "synthetic" galaxies with a wide range of S/N ratios. The "synthetic" galaxies where constructed using two different grids of high resolution theoretical population synthesis models. The results of our controlled experiment shows that our method can estimate with good speed and accuracy the parameters of the stellar populations that make up the galaxy even for very low S/N input. For a spectrum with S/N=5 the typical average deviation between the input and fitted spectrum is less than 10**{-5}. Additional improvements are achieved using prior knowledge.Comment: 14 pages, 25 figures, accepted by Monthly Notice

Strategic online-banking adoption

In this paper we study the determinants of banks’ decision to adopt a transactional website for their customers. Using a panel of commercial banks in the United States for the period 2003-2005, we show that although bank-specific characteristics are important determinants of banks’ adoption decision, competition plays a prominent role. The extent of competition is related to the geographical overlap of banks in different markets and their relative market share in terms of deposits. In more competitive markets banks are more likely to adopt earlier. Even more importantly, banks adopt earlier in markets where their competitors have already adopted.Internet banking

Noise-induced phase transitions: Effects of the noises' statistics and spectrum

The local, uncorrelated multiplicative noises driving a second-order, purely noise-induced, ordering phase transition (NIPT) were assumed to be Gaussian and white in the model of [Phys. Rev. Lett. \textbf{73}, 3395 (1994)]. The potential scientific and technological interest of this phenomenon calls for a study of the effects of the noises' statistics and spectrum. This task is facilitated if these noises are dynamically generated by means of stochastic differential equations (SDE) driven by white noises. One such case is that of Ornstein--Uhlenbeck noises which are stationary, with Gaussian pdf and a variance reduced by the self-correlation time (\tau), and whose effect on the NIPT phase diagram has been studied some time ago. Another such case is when the stationary pdf is a (colored) Tsallis' (q)--\emph{Gaussian} which, being a \emph{fat-tail} distribution for (q>1) and a \emph{compact-support} one for (q<1), allows for a controlled exploration of the effects of the departure from Gaussian statistics. As done before with stochastic resonance and other phenomena, we now exploit this tool to study--within a simple mean-field approximation and with an emphasis on the \emph{order parameter} and the ``\emph{susceptibility}''--the combined effect on NIPT of the noises' statistics and spectrum. Even for relatively small (\tau), it is shown that whereas fat-tail noise distributions ((q>1)) counteract the effect of self-correlation, compact-support ones ((q<1)) enhance it. Also, an interesting effect on the susceptibility is seen in the last case.Comment: 6 pages, 10 figures, uses aipproc.cls, aip-8s.clo and aipxfm.sty. To appear in AIP Conference Proceedings. Invited talk at MEDYFINOL'06 (XV Conference on Nonequilibrium Statistical Mechanics and Nonlinear Physics

Nueva lógica de la seguridad en México: Vigilancia y control de lo público y lo privado

La reciente firma del Acuerdo Nacional por la Seguridad, la Justicia y la Legalidad (2008), por parte de diferentes actores sociales en México, ha conllevado al establecimiento de un nuevo alcance para la noción de seguridad en el país y, con ello, un cauce distinto a las estrategias contra el crimen y la violencia, trasladándolas a la profundización en el uso de dispositivos de vigilancia y administración de la población y control social, así como de gestión de riesgos, en tanto se localiza ahora la raíz de la violencia y el crimen en "familias y comunidades enteras". El presente documento analiza la reconfiguración de las políticas de seguridad en México durante una década (1995-2008), desde la Ley del Sistema Nacional de Seguridad Pública (1995), el Plan Nacional de Seguridad Pública, dentro de la llamada Cruzada Nacional contra el Crimen y la Delincuencia (1998) y el Acuerdo antes referido; reparando en el papel que ha jugado la seguridad privada en las estrategias de seguridad del país, al proveerlas de tecnología, logística, recursos humanos, etc. Para ello se revisa la interacción de organismos no públicos de seguridad con Estados con instituciones políticas de tipo clientelar y democráticamente poco consolidadas