Measurement of the eta mass at KLOE

An integrated luminosity of 410 pb^(-1), corresponding to ~ 17 million of eta events, has been analyzed to measure the eta mass using the decay eta to gamma gamma. The measurement is insensitive to the calorimeter energy calibration and the systematic error on the measurement is dominated by the uniformity of the detector response. As a cross check of the method the pi0 mass from the decay phi to pi0 gamma, pi0 to gamma gamma has been measured and it is in agreement with the most accurate previous determinations. The result obtained is m(eta) = 547.873 +/- 0.007 (stat.) +/- 0.031 (syst.) MeV, that is today best measurement of the eta mass.Comment: 7 pages, 8 figures, Contributed paper to Lepton Photon 200

Protección a los acreedores e inestabilidad del crédito

(Disponible en idioma inglés únicamente) En este trabajo se analiza la relación entre la protección a los acreedores y la inestabilidad del crédito. Durante la etapa negativa del ciclo económico, el crédito se contrae más en los países que cuentan con menos dispositivos de protección a los acreedores. A condiciones similares de sacudidas a negocios, el crédito es más inestable en países donde los acreedores cuentan con una protección de facto débil. Ponemos a prueba esta idea empleando un conjunto de datos sobre factores jurídicos determinantes de las finanzas, en un panel de datos sobre el crecimiento agregado del crédito de una muestra de 139 países durante el período 1990-2003. Hallamos apoyo al punto de vista de que una mejor protección jurídica reduce considerablemente los efectos de las sacudidas externas sobre el crédito. Los resultados son tanto estadística como económicamente significativos y valederos ante mediciones alternativas de protección a los acreedores, la inclusión de variables referidas a diversas etapas de desarrollo económico y el hecho de que nuestra muestra se ha limitado únicamente a países en desarrollo.

Bank Ownership and Lending Behavior

This paper checks whether state-ownership of banks is correlated with lending behavior over the business cycle and finds that their lending is less responsive to macroeconomic shocks than the lending of private banks.

Bank Credit to Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises: The Role of Creditor Protection

We develop a model that shows that inefficient legal protections, disproportiantely increase financial restrictions for creditors that have less wealth. Due to fixed monitoring costs in equilibrium banks will not monitor small firms and therefore these firms will adopt risky technologies that imply a higher probability of bankruptcy. This implies that inefficiencies in the bankruptcy procedure will have a greater effect on small firms vis a vis large ones. Using a survey of firms in 62 countries around the world (WBES) and econometric techniques that allow us to deal with observed and unobserved country specific components as well as with partial endogeneity, we explore the role of creditor protection on small and medium-size enterprises’ access to bank credit. We find that better protection of creditors reduces the financing gap between small and large firms.

Bank Concentration and Credit Volatility

This paper uses an unbalanced panel covering ninety-three countries over the 1990-2002 period to study the empirical relationship between bank concentration and credit volatility. The paper finds that there is a strong negative relationship between loans concentration and credit sensitivity to external shocks. It also shows that this result is robust to different samples, measures of concentration and econometric techniques, and that this relationship is not driven by crisis episodes. These results are in line with the hypothesis that banks with a larger market share can internalize the countercyclical effects of expanding credit during recessions.

Determinants of Maritime Transport Costs

Recent literature has emphasized the importance of transport costs and infrastructure in explaining trade, access to markets, and increases in per capita income. For most Latin American countries, transport costs are a greater barrier to U. S. markets than import tariffs. We investigate the determinants of shipping costs to the U. S. with a large database of more than 300,000 observations per year on shipments of products at the six-digit HS level from different ports around the world. Distance and containerization matter. In addition, we find that efficiency of ports is an important determinant of shipping costs. Improving port efficiency from the 25th to the 75th percentile reduces shipping costs by 12 percent. (Bad ports are equivalent to being 60 percent farther away from markets for the average country. ) Inefficient ports also increase handling costs, which are one of the components of shipping costs. We try to explain variations in port efficiency and find that they are linked to excessive regulation, the prevalence of organized crime, and the general condition of the country’s infrastructure. Finally, we present a number of success stories in Latin America to show that private involvement in port management leads to efficiency and lower costs whenever it is accompanied by labor reform, and when monopoly power is reduced through either regulation or competition.

Creditor protection and financial markets: empirical evidence and implications for Latin America

Although Latin American countries have made significant strides in reforming their financial markets, these markets remain shallow, implying a need for further reform. Stronger protection of creditor rights can improve the size and stability of credit markets and provide greater access to capital for small and medium-sized enterprises that operate under greater financial strictures. ; In discussing creditor protection’s impact on the size of financial markets, the authors first document the state of Latin American creditor protection. They then discuss the effect of enhanced creditor rights on small and medium-sized firms and how the dynamics of financial markets are affected by the regulation of creditor rights. To examine the effects of adverse economic shocks on creditors, the authors study the credit cycle in various countries. ; In addition to increasing the size of financial markets and stimulating economic growth, reforms that strengthen creditor protection can affect credit allocation, the authors find. Their research suggests that the rules and regulations concerning the seizure of collateral need reforming and, more importantly, that the judicial system must become more agile to assure prompt, effective, and less expensive enforcement of creditor rights. The authors note that the successful introduction of these reforms may require convincing the citizenry that creditor protections benefit not only the financial sector but the economy overall.Economic stabilization

Infrastructure, competition regimes, and air transport costs: cross-country evidence

The relevance of transport costs has increased as liberalization continues to reduce artificial barriers to trade. Countries need to adopt policies to get closer to global markets. Can improvements in infrastructure and regulation reduce transport costs? Is it worthwhile to implement policies designed to increase competition in transport markets? Focusing on air transport, which has increased its share in US imports from 24 percent in 1990 to 35 percent in 2000, this paper quantifies the effects of infrastructure, regulatory quality and liberalization of air cargo markets on transport costs. During the 1990s, the United States implemented a series of Open Skies Agreements, providing a unique opportunity to assess the effect that a change in the competition regime has on prices. We find that infrastructure, quality of regulation and competition matter. In our sample, an improvement in airport infrastructure from the 25th to 75th percentiles reduces air transport costs by 15 percent. A similar improvement in the quality of regulation reduces air transport costs by 14 percent. Open Skies Agreements further reduce air transport costs by 8 percent.Transport Economics Policy&Planning,Transport and Trade Logistics,Economic Theory&Research,Decentralization,Common Carriers Industry,Airports and Air Services,Common Carriers Industry,Transport and Trade Logistics,Economic Theory&Research,Transport Economics Policy&Planning