Documento de Trabajo

Toll Competition Among Congested Roads

A growing number of roads are currently financed by the private sector via Build-Operate-and-Transfer (BOT) schemes. When the franchised road has no close substitute, the government must regulate tolls. Yet when there are many ways of getting from one point to another, regulation may be avoided by allowing competition between several franchise owners. This paper

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

Liquidity Crises in Emerging Markets: Theory and Policy

We build a model of financial sector illiquidity in an open economy. Illiquidity –defined as a situation in which a country’s consolidated financial system has potential short-term obligations in foreign currency that exceed the amount of foreign currency it can have access to on short notice– can be associated with self fulfilling bank and/or currency

Inflation Stabilization and the Consumption of Durable Goods.

Exchange rate-based stabilizations in chronic-inflation countries have often been characterized by an initial consumption boom (which is most evident in the behavior of durable goods) followed by a later contraction. This paper provides an explanation for such a boom-recession cycle based on the timing of purchases of durable goods. The initial fall in inflation results

Exchange Rate Policy in Chile since 1960: Political Economy and The Choice of Regime

This paper analyzes exchange rate policies in Chile since the 1960s. A brief overview on main policies is presented. Particular attention is put into the two episodes of fixed-exchange rate as well as the reasons why policy makers may have arrived to those decisions. The paper also examines the long tradition of Chile on the

Income Distribution and Trade Liberalization

The paper presents a general framework for the analysis of the evolution of personal income distribution following trade liberalization. The model allows many factors of production and the possibility of capital gains. In this framework, the short run evolution of inequality depends on the wage to wealth ratio, while changes in the interest rate determine

Economic Growth in Latin America: Sources and Prospects

This paper examines the growth experience of Latin America and discusses future prospects. For this purpose we use alternative approaches. We first perform growth decompositions to look at the behavior of total factor productivity and examine differences across regions of the world and within Latin America. Then, we use cross-country growth regressions to compare the

Latin American Trade Regime Reforms and Perceptions

We examine the effects of recent reforms in trade in Latin American countries. In general, these countries have changed from the inward oriented economic attitude sponsored by the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America (ECLAC), towards an outward looking perspective that is part of the “Washington Consensus». The paper details the changes in the