Documento de Trabajo

A Debt Puzzle

Over 60% of US households with credit cards are currently borrowing |i.e., paying interest |on those cards (Gross and Souleles 2000). We attempt to reconcile the high rate of credit card borrowing with observed levels of lifecycle wealth accumulation. We simulate a lifecycle model with five properties that create demand for credit card borrowing. First,

Hyperbolic Discounting, Wealth Accumulation, and Consumption

Laboratory and field studies of time preference find that discount rates are much greater in the short-run than in the long-run. Hyperbolic discount functions capture this property. This paper presents simulations of the savings and asset allocation choices of households with hyperbolic preferences. The behavior of the hyperbolic households is com-pared to the behavior of

How to Auction a Bottleneck Monopoly when Underhand Vertical Agreements are Possible

In recent years a number of seaport facilities have been awarded in Demsetz auctions to the operator that bidding the lowest cargo-handling fee. A major concern is that the port operator may integrate into shipping and sabotage competitors, thereby rendering the competitive auction irrelevant. The standard policy recommendation to mitigate this problem, is to ban

El índice de precios al consumidor y el costo de la vida (The consumer price index and the cost of living)

Este artículo tiene como objetivo ilustrar las diferencias en que se puede incurrir al estimar el aumento del costo de vida mediante el IPC, u otros índices de precios, con respecto al índice de precios verdaderos (IPV). Este índice es el que se debería usar si se quiere reajustar el ingreso de un individuo de

A Note on Enforcement Spending and Vat Revenues

Estimating the impact of changes in enforcement spending is of interest to tax authorities and policymakers. The literature on tax compliance usually focuses on the effect that these changes have on tax evasion, whish makes it difficult to obtain reliable estimates, since evasion data are often suspect, particularly so in developing countries. This note show

Marco conceptual para regular sustancias tóxicas en Chile (Conceptual framework for regulating toxic substances in Chile)

En este documento de trabajo se presenta una metodología para regular sustancias tóxicas atmosféricas en Chile. Esta metodología se basa en la experiencia internacional existente en la materia, acondicionada a la realidad chilena. El punto central que se destaca es que dada la complexidad en la regulación de sustancias tóxicas, las altas incertidumbres que existen

Uso del análisis probabilístico para mejorar la toma de decisiones en regulación ambiental: La regulación de arsénico en Chile (Use of probabilistic analysis to improve decision-making about environmental regulations: Arsenic regulation in Chile)

El uso del análisis probabilístico puede ser muy útil para la gestión de riesgos en países en desarrollo, donde la información, recursos y la especialización técnica es a menudo escasa. Actualmente, la mayoría de las agencias regulatorias en el mundo recomiendan el uso de los enfoques determinísticos para el análisis de los problemas relacionados con

Relationships, Competition, and the Structure of Investment Banking Markets

Previous studies have acknowledged the tradeoff between relationships and competition in financial intermediation. In this paper, we explore the structural determinants of this tradeoff in the investment banking market, by deriving it from the underlying relationship technology. In the model, each of several banks incurs a sunk cost to establish a relationship with the same

Análisis Económico de la política en educación superior en Chile (Economic analysis of Chile’s post-secondary education policy)

El artículo presenta una descripción de las políticas, logros y problemas de la educación superior en Chile en los últimos veinte años. Desde los ochenta se ha fomentado el autofinanciamiento de la docencia, complementado con un sistema de crédito contingente a ingresos y un sistema de crédito privado con seguro público, que ha permitido que

Female Labor Supply in Chile

The aim of this study is to analyze female labor supply in Chile and explain its peculiarities: the difference between female and male participation, and the pattern of female participation rates according to household income levels. To analyze the factors that affect the behavior of the female labor participation rate, we first estimate a labor

Impuestos y demanda por capital: Teoría y evidencia para Chile (Taxes and capital demand: Theory and evidence for Chile)

Este trabajo estima una demanda de largo plazo por capital en Chile, lo que permite estudiar la sensibilidad del stock de capital deseado por las empresas ante variaciones de las tasas de impuestos. El enfoque utilizado combina el modelo neoclásico de Jorgenson con un argumento de cointegración para obtener una demanda por capital de largo

Análisis historicográfico de la literatura económica chilena (Historiographical analysis of Chilean economic literature)

Santiago is one of the few Latin American cities that has had four specialized economic journals during more than a decade. The paper authors include the most distinguished academin economists. This article examines the evolution of this academic production during 1963-1996. The type of issues and their distribution among the papers constitute the focus af