Diferencias entre los sexos en los procedimientos judiciales: Pruebas de campo de causas de vivienda en Uruguay

Este trabajo emplea dados de nivel micro de procedimientos judiciales en Uruguay para mostrar pruebas de que las acusadas reciben un tratamiento más favorable en los tribunales que los acusados. Esto se debe a procedimientos más prolongados de remate judicial y a que hay una mayor probabilidad de que se concedan prórrogas en los procesos de desalojo a las acusadas.

Community tax evasion models: A stochastic dominance test

In a multi community environment local authorities compete for tax base. When monitoring is imperfect, agents may decide not to pay in their community (evasion), and save the tax difference. The agent decision on where to pay taxes is based on the probability of getting caught, the fine he eventually will have to pay and the time cost of paying in a neighbor community. First, we prove that if the focus of the agents’ decision is the probability of getting caught and the fine, only the richest people evade. If instead, the key ingredient is the time cost of evading, only the poorest cheat. Second, we test the evasion pattern on the Automobile Registration System in Uruguay using two stochastic dominance tests. The evidence favors in this case the hypothesis that richer people are the evaders.tax evasion, stochastic dominance

Hogares encabezados por mujeres y propiedad de la vivienda en América Latina

El sexo del cabeza de familia se ha tratado a menudo como un factor determinante exógeno de la propiedad de la vivienda. En este trabajo se sostiene que hay varios factores determinantes de la propiedad de la vivienda que también inciden en el papel de cabeza de familia y que la incapacidad de dar cuenta de esta endogeneidad conduce a resultados incongruentes. En este trabajo se demuestra, empleando datos de nivel individual de Chile, Honduras y Nicaragua, que aunque en promedio las mujeres tienen menos probabilidades de ser propietarias de vivienda, es más probable que las mujeres que son cabeza de familia (solteras, separadas o divorciadas) lleguen a ser propietarias de vivienda. De modo que el análisis a nivel de hogar debe controlar la endogeneidad del cabeza de familia para poder analizar adecuadamente el efecto del sexo en la tenencia de la vivienda. Se emplea un modelo de probit bivariante para hallar pruebas de que las familias encabezadas por una mujer tienen una menor probabilidad de alcanzar la propiedad de la vivienda en los países latinoamericanos. Sin el control de endogeneidad, este resultado no estuvo presente en ocho países.

Protection, Openness and Factor Adjustment: Evidence from the manufacturing sector in Uruguay

Using a panel of Uruguayan manufacturing firms we analyze the adjustment process in capital, blue collar and white collar employment. Our results confirm the lumpy nature of factor adjustment, the relevance of nonlinearities and the interdependence between factor shortages. The average annual estimated output gap due to adjustment cost for1982-1995 was 2%. Trade openness affected the adjustment functions of all three factors. Highly protected sectors adjust less when creating jobs (reducing labor shortages) than sectors with low protection. This may be due to fears of policy reversal in highly protected sectors. Also, highly protected sectors adjust more easily (than low protection sectors) when destroying jobs (reducing labor surpluses), especially in the case of blue collar labor. This suggests that trade protection may in fact destroy rather than create jobs within industries, as firms in highly protected sectors are more reluctant to hire and more ready to fire than firms in sectors with low protection. The results for capital are qualitatively similar but quantitatively smaller. Overall the impact of higher international exposure is larger for blue collar workers than white collar workers.Adjustment costs, Adjustment functions, Openness

The Impact of ICT on Health Promotion: A Randomized Experiment with Diabetic Patients

This paper summarizes randomized experiment to study the effects of an Internetbased intervention on type 2 diabetes patients in Montevideo, Uruguay. The intervention consisted of a specially designed website and an electronic social network where participants were able to navigate freely, download materials, and interact with other diabetics and with specialists. No significant impact was found on participants` knowledge, behavior, or health outcomes. It was also found that only a minority of patients logged on to the website, and most were only reached by email and mobile text (SMS). Participation in the website is correlated with patients` characteristics, such as gender, marital status, and education.Randomized trial, Diabetes, Public health, Uruguay

Protection, openness, and factor adjustment : evidence from the manufacturing sector in Uruguay

The authors use a panel of manufacturing firms to analyze the adjustment process in capital blue collar and white collar employment in Uruguay during a period of trade liberalization when average tariff protection fell from 43 to 14 percent. They calculate the desired factor levels arising from a counterfactual profit maximization in the absence of adjustment costs, generating a measure of factor shortages or surpluses. The average estimated output gap for 1982-95 is 2 percent. The authors'policy analysis shows that trade openness affected the adjustment functions of all three factors of production.Highly protected sectors adjust less when creating jobs (reducing labor shortages) than sectors with low protection. This may be due to fears of policy reversal in highly protected sectors. Also, highly protected sectors adjust more easily (than low protection sectors) when destroying jobs (reducing labor surpluses), especially in the case of blue collar labor. This suggests that trade protection may in fact destroy rather than create jobs within industries, as firms in highly protected sectors are more reluctant to hire and more ready to fire than firms in sectors with low protection. The results for capital are qualitatively similar but quantitatively smaller, suggesting that trade protection plays less of a role in explaining adjustment costs for capital. Interestingly, export-oriented sectors have lower adjustment costs for blue collar labor but not for white collar employment or capital, suggesting that export-led growth may be particularly successful in reducing blue collar unemployment.Economic Theory&Research,Labor Markets,Free Trade,Economic Growth,Educational Sciences

Multiple job holding: the artist’s labor supply approach

This paper analyzes a labor supply model in which individuals maximize a utility function that depends on leisure time, consumption and time devoted to an activity that is termed “artistic”. This activity may generate income that depends non linearly on hours dedicated to it. The individual can also work in the labor market (an activity that does not increase utility by itself) in exchange for an hourly wage, and obtain income not related to hours. Conditions are obtained that sort individuals in two groups, part time and full time artists, deriving their labor supply functions in both activities. The predictions of the model are tested empirically using a sample of musicians from a Uruguayan performing rights society.Labor supply, time allocation, artist’s labor supply, cultural economics

Tax competition and tax harmonization with evasion

We examine a two-jurisdiction tax competition environment where local governments can only imperfectly monitor where agents pay taxes and risk-averse individuals my choose to cross borders to pay lower taxes in a neighboring location. ; In the game between local authorities, when communities differ in size, in equilibrium the smaller community sets lower taxes and attracts agents from the larger jurisdiction. With identical communities, tax rates must be equal. Whenever the smaller community benefits from tax harmonization, the larger one will also. ; If the high-tax community chooses a monitoring policy, the local population splits into groups of tax avoidance and compliance.Taxation ; Competition

Fuerzas tradicionales de exclusión: Una revisión de la literatura cuantitativa sobre la situación económica de los pueblos indígenas, afrodescendientes y personas con discapacidad

(Disponible en inglés) La distribución desigual de riqueza en América Latina y el Caribe esta ligada a la distribución desigual de activos (humanos y físicos) y al acceso diferenciado a los mercados y servicios. Estas circunstancias, y las correspondientes tensiones sociales, deben ser entendidas en términos de fuerzas tradicionales de exlcusión; los sectores de la población que experimentan resultados desfavorables también pueden ser reconocidos por características como etnicidad, raza, género y discapacidaes físicas. Además de revisar la literatura en exclusión social, este trabajo revisa diferentes tópicos: (i) deprivación relativa (en tierra y vivienda, infraestructura física, salud e ingresos); (ii) temas de los mercados de trabajo, incluyendo acceso a los mercados en general, así como informalidad, segregación y discriminación; (iii) los puntos de transacción de representación política, protección social y violencia; y (iv) áreas en las que el análisis aun es débil y avenidas para mayor investigación en la región.

The Impact of Trade Liberalization on Employment, Capital and Productivity Dynamics:

This paper studies the impact of trade liberalization on labor and capital gross flows and productivity in the Uruguayan Manufacturing Sector. Uruguay opened its economy in the presence of strong –at least initially- unions and structural different industry concentration levels. Higher international exposure implied a slightly higher job creation and an important increase in job and capital destruction. Unions were able to ameliorate this effect. Although not associated with higher creation rates, unions were effective in reducing job and capital destruction. Industry concentration also was found to mitigate the destruction of jobs but had no effect on job creation nor in capital dynamics. The changes in the use of labor and capital brought an increase in total factor productivity specially in sectors where tariff reductions were larger and unions were not present. We found no evidence of varying productivity dynamics across different industry concentration levelsjob creation, job destruction, total factor productivity