Suddenly last summer: how the tourist tsunami hit Lisbon

En el presente artículo fijamos nuestra atención en la capital de Portugal, Lisboa, y su reciente proceso de turistificación, que ha forzado a una revisión colectiva de la identidad de la ciudad y sus narrativas patrimoniales, para encajar los crecientes contrastes entre marginalidad y centralidad, circulación y calma, abandono y atención pública, indigencia y afluencia, spleen y euforia. Después de introducir nuestro foco teórico en el problema de los “comunales urbanos” y de presentar nuestra metodología cualitativa, pasamos a describir el proceso histórico que ha conducido a la transformación de Lisboa: desde el mega-evento de la Expo’98 cuando Lisboa era todavía un destino turístico periférico, hasta la presente economía urbana, especializada en el turismo y los servicios. Vamos a centrarnos especialmente en los proyectos y políticas implantadas “desde arriba” durante aquellos años y en la crisis financiera de 2008, usada para liberalizar varios aspectos de la economía.In this paper, we focus our attention in Portugal’s capital city, Lisbon, and in the recent process of its touristification, which is forcing a collective revision of the city’s identity and its patrimonial narratives, to make sense of the growing contrasts between marginality and centrality, circulation and calm, abandonment and limelight, indigence and affluence, spleen and euphoria. After introducing our theoretical focus on the problem of “urban commons” and the qualitative methodology used in the article, we describe the historical process that led to the transformation of Lisbon: from the Expo’98 megaevent when Lisbon was a peripheral tourism destiny, to the present urban economy that is specialized in tourism and services. We will focus especially in the top-down projects and policies developed during those years and the use of 2008 financial crisis to liberalize many aspects of economy

A Note on Mexico and U.S. Manufacturing Industries’ Long-term Relationship.

The results in Chiquiar and Ramos-Francia (2005) suggested that the long-run relationship between the US’s and Mexico’s manufacturing sectors was weakened after China joined the World Trade Organization (WTO). When that paper was made, however, this shock was too recent and, therefore, the analysis was based only on end-of-sample structural break tests. In this note we use updated information to revisit this issue. The results suggest that, by shifting resources towards those sectors where it remained competitive, Mexico’s response allowed the effect of China’s entry to the WTO on its long-term relationship with the U.S. manufacturing sector to be only temporary.Business Cycle Synchronization, Trade Integration, NAFTA

Does Inflation Targeting Affect the Dispersion of Inflation Expectations?

In this paper we examine the effect of having an inflation targeting framework on the dispersion of inflation forecasts from professional forecasters. We use a panel data set of 26 countries -including 14 inflation targeters- with monthly information from the last 16 years. We find that the dispersion of long-run inflation expectations is lower in targeting regimes after controlling for country-specific effects, time-specific effects, initial dispersion, the level and the variance of inflation, disinflation periods, and global inflation. When we differentiate between developed and developing countries, we find different dynamics for each group. In particular, the mentioned effect of inflation targeting seems to be present only on the developing countries.Monetary Policy, Survey Data, Panel Data

Inflation Dynamics in Latin America

We analyze inflation's persistence in the 1980-2006 period for the ten largest Latin American economies using univariate time-series techniques. Although the estimated degree of inflation persistence appears to be different across countries, for the region as a whole the persistence seems to be very high. However, the estimated degree of persistence falls in all countries once we permit structural breaks in the mean of inflation. The timing of these breaks coincides with shifts in the monetary policy regimes and is similar across countries. Regardless of the changes in the mean, the degree of persistence appears to be decreasing in the region, even though for some countries persistence does not seem to be changing.Inflation, Inflation Persistence, Latin America, Monetary Policy, Multiple Breaks, Time Series

Competitiveness and Growth of the Mexican Economy.

We address the role that deep, structural factors may have as determinants of Mexico’s economic growth. We argue that Mexico’s poor growth performance appears to be associated not only with shorter-run events such as the "lost decade" of the eighties, but also with supply-side features of the economy that have been present for at least four decades. Mexico’s low competitiveness and poor growth potential seem to reflect an institutional framework that tends to support rigid, non-competitive market structures, and incentives that promote the allocation of resources towards unproductive rent-seeking activities relatively more than into investment, production, productivity, and adoption of superior technologies. We present examples of input markets where we believe these issues are central. We conclude that solving this situation requires microeconomic policies that lead to fundamental changes in the incentive structure of the economy.Competitiveness and growth, productivity, efficiency, comparative advantage.

Job losses, outsourcing and relocation, empirical evidence using microdata.

Using microdata, we analyse the determinants of firm relocation and conventional outsourcing decisions as a way to reduce employment. The results for a sample of 32 countries show the relevance of factors not considered previously in the literature. Firms that are below average in quality or innovation have a higher propensity to externalise part of their production through outsourcing, while lower relative profitability and longer time to market for new products each imply a higher probability of relocation.Job losses, outsourcing and relocation

Regional Economic Growth And Human Capital: The Role Of Overeducation

The paper analyses the link between human capital and regional economic growth in the European Union. Using different indicators of human capital calculated from census microdata, we conclude that the recent economic performance of European regions is associated to an increase in overeducation. In fact, measures of educational mismatch seem to have a stronger connection to regional economic performance than other traditional measures of human capital stocks.Regional economic growth, human capital, educational mismatch, overeducation

Human capital spillovers, productivity and regional convergence in Spain

This paper analyses the differential impact of human capital, in terms of different levels of schooling, on regional productivity and convergence. The potential existence of geographical spillovers of human capital is also considered by applying spatial panel data techniques. The empirical analysis of Spanish provinces between 1980 and 2007 confirms the positive impact of human capital on regional productivity and convergence, but reveals no evidence of any positive geographical spillovers of human capital. In fact, in some specifications the spatial lag presented by tertiary studies has a negative effect on the variables under consideration.Regional convergence, productivity, human capital composition, geographical spillovers.

Regional Economic Growth and Human Capital: The Role of Overeducation

The paper analyses the link between human capital and regional economic growth in the European Union. Using various indicators of human capital calculated from census microdata, we conclude that the recent economic performance of European regions is associated with an increase in overeducation. In fact, measures of educational mismatch seem to be more strongly connected to regional economic performance than do other traditional measures of human capital stock.regional economic growth, human capital, educational mismatch, overeducation