Sectors Expansion, Allocation of Talent and Adverse Selection in Development

This paper proposes a theory in which informational failures hindering an efficient operation of the economy are solved over the course development. Individuals are heterogeneous in terms of entrepreneurial talent, exhibiting different comparative advantages. Talent is subject to private information, giving rise to adverse selection problems. In this paper, adverse selection stems from sectors scarcity, which prevents some individuals from finding their "appropriate" sector. The availability of many sectors facilitates the allocation of individuals' unobservable talent. As a result, sectors expansion fosters growth because it helps to solve adverse selection problems. Successful long-run development is characterised by a continuous process of sectoral expansion, improved allocation of talent, and more efficient operation of financial institutions. Nevertheless, this model may also lead to poverty-traps; where economies are confined to a rudimentary situation with few sectors, poor allocation of talent, and underdeveloped financial institutions.Horizontal Innovation, Talent Allocation, Adverse Selection, Risk-Sharing

Sectoral Differentiation, Allocation of Talent, and Financial Development

I present a theory of development in which heterogeneously talented entrepreneurs require credit to start new projects and open new sectors. As the variety of sectors expands during development, the allocation of entrepreneurial talent improves. A key result of the paper is to show that, in addition to increasing the average productivity of the matches between agents and sectors, this process also mitigates informational frictions affecting the functioning of financial markets. Furthermore, the positive impact of sectoral variety on the efficiency of financial markets gives rise to a novel feedback between financial development and R&D effort, which may lead to different types of dynamics. A successful economy typically exhibits a progressive increase in the variety of sectors, which in turn helps to alleviate frictions in the financial markets. However, a poverty trap may also arise. This situation is characterised by a rudimentary productive structure with poor matching of skills to activities, and where the operation of financial markets is severely affected by talent mismatching.Adverse Selection, Informational Frictions, Talent Allocation, Sectoral Diversification, Financial Development.

Import Diversification along the Growth Path

We provide evidence showing that the degree of diversification of import sources of finely disaggregated commodities rises monotonically along the growth path. This result is robust to different measures of import diversification and the inclusion of a large set of additional control variables. In addition, we show the process of rising import diversification takes place as countries gradually increase their spending shares in imports originating from relatively distant exporters.Bilateral trade, import diversication, product variety

Adverse Selection and Entrepreneurship in a Model of Development

This paper presents a theory in which risk-averse heterogeneously talented entrepreneurs are the key agents driving the process of development and modernisation. Entrepreneurial skills are private information, which prevents full risk sharing. In that setup, development to a modern industrial economy might fail to take place, since potentially talented entrepreneurs may refrain from taking on the entrepreneurial risks as a way to avoid income shocks. An interesting feature of the model is that the informational asymmetries in the economy are endogenous to the process of development, as they are related to the heterogeneity in entrepreneurial skills required in the manufacturing activities.Adverse Selection, Development, Entrepreneurship, Risk-Sharing

The role of quality ladders in a Ricardian model of trade with nonhomothetic preference.

The literature on North-South trade has explored conditions under which international trade might be a factor magnifying income disparities between the advanced North and the backward South. Little attention has yet been placed on the effect of trade on countries that do not display substantial dissimilarities concerning capital endowments. We show that even when no single country is technologically more advanced than any other one and productivity changes are uniform and identical in all countries, international trade may still be a source of income divergence. Income divergence will be experienced when comparative advantages induce patterns of specialisation that, although optimal for each country at some initial point in time, do not offer the same scope for improvements in terms of subsequent quality upgrading of final products

Are Free Trade Agreements Contagious?

This paper presents empirical evidence on the extent to which FTAs are gcontagioush, using empirical techniques inspired by the study of contagion in exchange rate crises. Applying a series of different econometric techniques, it tests the null hypothesis that the signing of an FTA between one nationfs trade partners has no affect on the probability of the nation signing a new FTA. The hypothesis is tested against other political, economical and geographical determinants of the FTA formation previously stated in the literature, finding evidence that the contagion phenomenon is present in different specifications and samples.Contagion Effect, Free Trade Agreements and International Trade

Are Free Trade Agreements Contagious?

This paper presents empirical evidence on the extent to which FTAs are "contagious", using empirical techniques inspired by the study of contagion in exchange rate crises. Applying a series of different econometric techniques, it tests the null hypothesis that the signing of an FTA between one nation's trade partners has no affect on the probability of the nation signing a new FTA. The hypothesis is tested against other political, economical and geographical determinants of the FTA formation previously stated in the literature, finding evidence that the contagion phenomenon is present in different specifications and samples.Contagion Effect, Free Trade Agreements and International Trade

Behavioral Theories of the Business Cycle

We explore the business cycle implications of expectation shocks and of two well-known psychological biases, optimism and overconfidence. The expectations of optimistic agents are biased toward good outcomes, while overconfident agents overestimate the precision of the signals that they receive. Both expectation shocks and overconfidence can increase business-cycle volatility, while preserving the model's properties in terms of comovement, and relative volatilities. In contrast, optimism is not a useful source of volatility in our model.business cycle, optimism, overconfidence, volatility

La deuda pública en el mundo

(Disponible en idioma inglés) La base de datos se puede acceder en: http://www. iadb. org/res/pub_desc. cfm?pub_id=DBA-005

News and Business Cycles in Open Economies

Aggregate and sectoral comovement are central features of business cycle data. Therefore, the ability to generate comovement is a natural litmus test for macroeconomic models. But it is a test that most existing models fail. In this paper we propose a unified model that generates both aggregate and sectoral comovement in response to contemporaneous shocks and news shocks about fundamentals. The fundamentals that we consider are aggregate and sectoral TFP shocks as well as investment-specific technical change. The model has three key elements: variable capital utilization, adjustment costs to investment, and a new form of preferences that allow us to parameterize the strength of short-run wealth effects on the labor supply.