Government Subsidies and Political Elections: Evidence for Chile

In this paper, we explore the effects of government subsidies (monetary and in-kind) in presidential elections in Chile in 1989-2000. Our dependent variable is the percentage of votes obtained by the incumbent. We use a panel with three periods (the elections of 1989, 1993 and 1999) and 228 counties. We correct for the potential simultaneity problem derived from the fact that an incumbent facing a difficult political scenario might react by increasing subsidies to improve his/her electoral performance. Our results indicate that the greater the government spending on these types of programs (measured by the percentage of the population that receives the subsidy), the higher the votes for the incumbent. When we separate monetary and in-kind subsidies, we find that only inkind subsidies are statistically significant. We estimate that to obtain an additional vote, the incumbent has to spend between US$1,680 and US$1,920 (measured in PPP) in government subsidies.Political elections, subsidies, business cycle, unemployment

Constraining heavy colored resonances from top-antitop quark events

Recent measurements of the top quark charge asymmetry at Tevatron disfavor the existence of flavor universal axigluons and colorons at 2 sigmas. In this letter we explore the possibility to reconcile the data with these models and use the charge asymmetry and the invariant mass distribution of top-antitop quark pair events to constrain the mass and couplings of massive color-octet gauge bosons decaying to top quarks.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures. References added, final version to appear in Phys.Rev.

Unemployment Insurance in Chile: Does it Stabilize the Business Cycle?

We explore the stabilizing effects of unemployment insurance in Chile. A dynamic general equilibrium model is calibrated for the Chilean economy for the 1960-2000 period. We assume that the economy is subject to exogenous technological shocks and that a fraction of the population is liquidity constrained. Our main conclusion is that unemployment insurance has some stabilizing effect on the business cycle, especially on consumption, but that this effect is of the second order of magnitude. We also find that the larger the fraction of the population that is liquidity constrained, the more likely the program is welfare improving. Our results suggest that the objective of stabilizing the business cycle would be more efficiently achieved using alternative instruments.Unemployment insurance, business cycle

A Note on the Identifiability of Generalized Linear Mixed Models

I present here a simple proof that, under general regularity conditions, the standard parametrization of generalized linear mixed model is identifiable. The proof is based on the assumptions of generalized linear mixed models on the first and second order moments and some general mild regularity conditions, and, therefore, is extensible to quasi-likelihood based generalized linear models. In particular, binomial and Poisson mixed models with dispersion parameter are identifiable when equipped with the standard parametrization.Comment: 9 pages, no figure

Radiative return at NLO and the measurement of the hadronic cross-section

The measurement of the hadronic cross-section in $e^+ e^-$ annihilation at high luminosity factories using the radiative return method is motivated and discussed. A Monte Carlo generator which simulates the radiative process $e^+ e^- \to \gamma+hadrons$ at the next-to-leading order accuracy is presented. The analysis is then extended to the description of events with hard photons radiated at very small angle.Comment: 12 pages, 6 figures. To appear in Acta Physica Polonica B. Presented at the XXV International Conference on Theoretical Physics ``Particle Physics and Astrophysics in the Standard Model and Beyond'', Ustron, Poland, 9-16 September 200

The entropy of Taub-Bolt-AdS from an improved action principle

In this article the study of four dimensional spaces with NUT charges and their ground states is continued. In particular, through the introduction of an improved action principle containing topological densities, it is shown that these spaces have simple and sound thermodynamic relations. As an example the entropy of Taub-Bolt-AdS solution is computed in terms of a Noether charge.Comment: 11 page