The 2008 Chilean Reform to First-Pillar Pensions

Chile approved in early 2008 the replacement of her two current non-contributory subsidies for the old poor for a unified program with a pioneering design, with phase-in ending in 2012. This paper describes the political economy of this reform and evaluates it with regards to efficiency and equity. The design is analogous to one adopted in Finland in 1957, with two differences: First, the subsidy withdrawal rate in response to the individual’s contributory pension benefit is lower, about 30% rather than 50%. Second, preserving a tradition introduced in 1975, benefits are also withdrawn in response to per capita household income.social security, welfare programs, political economy of reform

Optimal Compulsion when Behavioral Biases Vary and the State Errs

When behavioral biases have varying sizes, and the State seeks to correct behavior through compulsion, the question is how to design optimal compulsion. One argument is that the amount of compulsion should rise with the size of the bias to be “cured”. A contrary argument is that since compulsion affects actions, and recommended actions are independent from the bias, the amount of compulsion should not depend on the bias. This puzzle is solved for the case where individuals are affected by a bias that leads them to under-save, acknowledging that the planner predicts each individual’s optimal action with error. Since only low-bias individuals are able to correct the planner’s mistakes when mandated to save too little, but not in the opposite direction due to a costly spread, the optimal amount of compulsion rises with the predicted bias. As an application, the paper explores a behavioral rationale for a Maximum for Taxable Earnings (MTE). It finds that if (1) the State’s information is limited to current earnings; (2) earnings do not influence the earnings ratio for old age; and (3) the bias is smaller only for the highest earnings quintile, then a MTE near the 80th percentile of the earnings distribution is optimal.behavioral bias, compulsion, optimal policy, time-inconsistency, overoptimism, pensions, maximum taxable earnings

Acuerdos extrajudiciales antimonopólicos y principio de eficiencia

La Ley 20.361 modificó el Decreto Ley 211 de 1973 facultando a la Fiscalía Nacional Económica para suscribir acuerdos extrajudiciales con los agentes económicos involucrados en sus investigaciones, con el objeto de cautelar la libre competencia en los mercados. Estos acuerdos extrajudiciales tienen por finalidad la eficiencia del sistema antimonopólico nacional al perseguir la desjudicialización de los procedimientos contenciosos y no contenciosos que eventualmente podrían ser conocidos por el Tribunal de Defensa de la Libre Competencia.Los mencionados acuerdos extrajudiciales exigen ciertos elementos esenciales: i) el acuerdo, que constituye la médula de la autocomposición y respecto del cual se analiza su carácter extrajudicial, preventivo, plurilateral, total, solemne y dotado de objeto y causa reales y lícitas, y ii) la actividad del Tribunal de Defensa de la Libre Competencia que, más que una forma de heterocomposición es, en estricto rigor, un acto de control y respecto del cual se estudia la iniciativa, el control y el carácter vinculante del mismo

La conciliación antimonopólica

In this paper we see that not all principles and provisions of the civil settlement are likely to apply to the settlement set forth in Decree Law 211. The above leads to two conclusions: i) the existence of specific differences that shape the antitrust settlement as a diverse institution of the civil settlement and ii) a limited or partial supplementary application of the rules governing civil settlement regarding the antitrust settlement.En este trabajo se advierte que no todos los principios y preceptos de la conciliación civil son susceptibles de aplicación a la conciliación establecida en el Decreto Ley 211. Lo expuesto conduce a una doble conclusión: i) la existencia de diferencias específicas que perfilan la conciliación antimonopólica como una institución diversa de la conciliación civil y ii) una supletoriedad limitada o parcial de la normativa que rige la conciliación civil respecto de la conciliación antimonopólica

Market Innovations to Better Allocate Generational Risk

Mandatory programs for old-age benefits tend to require periodic adjustments due to demographic and economic uncertainty. Relying on discretionary legislation for these Social Security adjustments creates political risk for workers and beneficiaries, and it can also raise risks borne by taxpayers. An alternative approach is rule-based adjustment, as in the case of funded mutual funds and life insurance plans that offer annuities. This paper argues that rule-based adjustments can be adopted in an unfunded system, without incurring transition costs and without increasing the public debt. We evaluate an approach to this problem which would endow the Trust Fund with property rights over the revenue of a (much reduced) residual payroll tax paid by future workers. Revenue on the future taxes would be securitized and the resulting securities priced in financial markets. The new securities created in the process would allow beneficiaries to obtain safe real pensions protected from investment risk

3D Reconstruction with Uncalibrated Cameras Using the Six-Line Conic Variety

We present new algorithms for the recovery of the Euclidean structure from a projective calibration of a set of cameras with square pixels but otherwise arbitrarily varying intrinsic and extrinsic parameters. Our results, based on a novel geometric approach, include a closed-form solution for the case of three cameras and two known vanishing points and an efficient one-dimensional search algorithm for the case of four cameras and one known vanishing point. In addition, an algorithm for a reliable automatic detection of vanishing points on the images is presented. These techniques fit in a 3D reconstruction scheme oriented to urban scenes reconstruction. The satisfactory performance of the techniques is demonstrated with tests on synthetic and real data

Directional Geodesic Active Contours

We present a non-conformal metric that generalizes the geodesic active contours approach for image segmentation. The new metric is obtained by adding to the Euclidean metric an additional term that penalizes the misalignment of the curve with the image gradient and multiplying the resulting metric by a conformal factor that depends on the edge intensity. In this way, a closer fitting to the edge direction results. The provided experimental results address the computation of the geodesics of the new metric by applying a gradient descent to externally provided curves. The good performance of the proposed techniques is demonstrated in comparison with other active contours methods

Acción pública de constitucionalidad : Una mirada a la luz del texto del 2019

La concepción de la democracia como forma de gobierno donde el poder está en manos del pueblo, lleva implícita la idea de la PARTICIPACIÓN POPULAR en los asuntos públicos y en el ejercicio del poder político. La más famosa definición de la democracia, dada por Abraham Lincoln en el siglo XIX, como “el gobierno del pueblo, por el pueblo y para el pueblo”3, muestra la idea del poder popular como elemento esencial de la democracia.Facultad de Ciencias Jurídicas y Sociale