Economic Development and the Quality of Life of Children

Historical studies show that the average height of Western European children began its secular growth in 1850 only after a period of decline and stagnation which had started around 1750. We argue that the initial downturn in heights is related to the demographic transition, and show that an extension of the neoclassical model of economic growth can explain the observed phenomena. We test whether the predictions of the model hold for a cross-section of contemporary countries, and we find that stature is indeed negatively associated with income per capita and fertility for countries with an income per capita below a given threshold. As a final exercise, we ask whether these cross-country estimates explain the improvement in children’s height observed in the last hundred and fifty years.Los estudios históricos muestran que el crecimiento secular de la estatura media de los niños europeos occidentales comenzó en 1850 y fue precedido por cien años de declive y estancamiento. Conjeturamos que la caída inicial en las estaturas está relacionada con la transición demográfica y mostramos que una extensión del modelo neoclásico de crecimiento económico puede explicar el fenómeno. Verificamos que las predicciones del modelo se cumplen en el presente para un corte transversal de países y encontramos que, en países con bajo ingreso por habitante, la estatura media de los niños está negativamente asociada con el ingreso per capita y con la fecundidad. Como ejercicio final, nos preguntamos si estas estimaciones explican el cambio en la estatura media observado en el último siglo y medio

Regional comovement in employment over the business cycle in Mexico

We determine the extent of cyclical comovement in employment among the regions of Mexico by analyzing the covariance of the disturbances in regional cycles during the period July 1997 - October 2009. Employment refers to the number of workers with permanent contracts affiliated to the Instituto Mexicano del Seguro Social. Trend and cycle decomposition and the variance-covariance matrix of the cycle's disturbances are obtained from the estimation -using state space methods- of a structural multivariate model of the employment time series. We find, for most regions, that employment comovement is high and that the variance of the regional cycles' disturbances is largely associated with the fluctuations in national employment. We do not find evidence, however, of a common underlying cycle, which means that employment comovement would arise from the geographical propagation of regional specific shocks.Employment, comovement, regions, Mexico.

Federal grants, local public-good provision, and consumption smoothing

This paper addresses two very important, but usually neglected, aspects of Argentina's federal revenue-sharing system. The first aspect refers to the horizontal tensions present -in addition to the traditional vertical one of lack of fiscal correspondence- in the current system of revenue-sharing [Porto (1999)]. At the federal level, these horizontal tensions take the form of conflicting goals among Ministries regarding policy making in the provinces. For example, Ministries do not coordinate efforts to help provinces to solve the problem of financing the provision of local public-goods while achieving provincial fiscal balance. At the local -i.e. provincial- level horizontal tensions take the form of conflicting goals between the citizenry and an imperfectly controlled politician-bureaucrat who wants to minimize administrative effort and can, in this way, affect the (stochastic) cost of public good provision. The second aspect of the federal tax system that we want to address refers to the degree of risk-sharing between federal and local jurisdictions over uncertain outcomes; which is an important issue from the point of view of economic welfare. Risksharing was not explicitly discussed in the bilateral agreements that paved the way to the current federal revenue-sharing system, and it is not clear how to deal with it in future reforms of the system. Nicolini et al. (1999) find some evidence of risk-sharing motives in the management of ATNs, but they do not address explicitly the issue of private consumption smoothing, nor relate the problem of risk-sharing to the horizontal tensions aforementioned.Departamento de Economí

Federal grants, local public-good provision, and consumption smoothing

This paper addresses two very important, but usually neglected, aspects of Argentina's federal revenue-sharing system. The first aspect refers to the horizontal tensions present -in addition to the traditional vertical one of lack of fiscal correspondence- in the current system of revenue-sharing [Porto (1999)]. At the federal level, these horizontal tensions take the form of conflicting goals among Ministries regarding policy making in the provinces. For example, Ministries do not coordinate efforts to help provinces to solve the problem of financing the provision of local public-goods while achieving provincial fiscal balance. At the local -i.e. provincial- level horizontal tensions take the form of conflicting goals between the citizenry and an imperfectly controlled politician-bureaucrat who wants to minimize administrative effort and can, in this way, affect the (stochastic) cost of public good provision. The second aspect of the federal tax system that we want to address refers to the degree of risk-sharing between federal and local jurisdictions over uncertain outcomes; which is an important issue from the point of view of economic welfare. Risksharing was not explicitly discussed in the bilateral agreements that paved the way to the current federal revenue-sharing system, and it is not clear how to deal with it in future reforms of the system. Nicolini et al. (1999) find some evidence of risk-sharing motives in the management of ATNs, but they do not address explicitly the issue of private consumption smoothing, nor relate the problem of risk-sharing to the horizontal tensions aforementioned.Departamento de Economí

Ingreso per cápita, desigualdad y salud

Ingreso per cápita, desigualdad y salu

Ingreso per cápita, desigualdad y salud

Ingreso per cápita, desigualdad y salu

Comovement and cyclical synchronization of employment across Mexican states

Using various statistical measures we estimate the degree of comovement and cyclical synchronization of formal employment across Mexican states. As a measure of formal employment we use the number of workers with permanent contracts registered at the Instituto Mexicano del Seguro Social in each state between July 1997 and April 2009. We find that Mexican states are highly heterogeneous with respect to the degree of employment comovement and the association between the state and national employment. Only in 11 of the 32 states we find that fluctuations in state employment are highly synchronized between them and with national employment. These states are located in the northern border with the United States, in the center west and in the center of the country. Additionally, we find evidence of employment comovement, albeit much weaker, in 4 states located in the vicinity of Mexico City. In the rest of the states, employment fluctuations are unrelated to national employment or other states' employment fluctuations.Employment, cycles, comovement, states, regions, Mexico.

Nowcasting Mexico’s short-term GDP growth in real-time: a factor model versus professional forecasters

We introduce a novel real-time database for the Mexican economy and propose a small-scale mixed-frequency dynamic factor model for nowcasting Mexico’s short-term GDP growth in real-time. We compare our factor-based backcasts, nowcasts, and forecasts with those of the consensus of the survey of professional forecasters during the period from the second quarter of 2008 through the second quarter of 2014. Our results suggest that our factor-based backcasts, nowcasts, and forecasts outperform those of the consensus of professional forecasters in real-time comparisons despite some structural instability during the 2008–09 crisis and its aftermath in 2010

Evaluation of training for the unemployed in Mexico: learning by comparing methods

We evaluate the Mexican training program for the unemployed PROBECAT/SICAT using methods that control for observable and non-observable factors. Comparing the different results over time allows us to gauge the size and evolution of hidden bias. We also compute the average treatment effect and the treatment effect on the treated. Our approach reveals the evolution of the program’s selection mechanism and judges the consequences of its expansions and contractions. We find that the program has a small though significant effect on employability, but no effect on wages. The hidden bias is large but declines over time and the selection mechanism turns from negative to neutral. These two aspects seem to be related to an important structural change in the design of the program that took place during the period under evaluation. All these results lead us to conclude that a parametric method controlling for un-observables provides the most complete tool for evaluating this program

Evaluation of training for the unemployed in Mexico: learning by comparing methods

We evaluate the Mexican training program for the unemployed PROBECAT/SICAT using methods that control for observable and non-observable factors. Comparing the different results over time allows us to gauge the size and evolution of hidden bias. We also compute the average treatment effect and the treatment effect on the treated. Our approach reveals the evolution of the program’s selection mechanism and judges the consequences of its expansions and contractions. We find that the program has a small though significant effect on employability, but no effect on wages. The hidden bias is large but declines over time and the selection mechanism turns from negative to neutral. These two aspects seem to be related to an important structural change in the design of the program that took place during the period under evaluation. All these results lead us to conclude that a parametric method controlling for un-observables provides the most complete tool for evaluating this program