Documento de Trabajo

The Chilean Infrastructure Concessions Program: Evaluation, Lessons and Prospects for the Future

This paper describes and evaluates the Chilean infrastructure concessions program, which is one of the main economic innovations carried out by the center-left coalition of political parties that has governed Chile since the return to democracy in 1990. The main principles underlying the economics of franchising are discussed and used to evaluate the program, thereby

Poverty and Macroeconomic Policies: Chile 1987-1994

Poverty has declined substantially since 1987 in Chile. Has this reduction in poverty benefited all groups and regions? Are this specific sectors of the economy that have been left out of this reduction? These and other question are discussed in this paper. To do so, we characterize the poor in terms of education, employment, demographics

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

Anatomía de una crisis eléctrica (Anatomy of an electric power crisis)

Este trabajo estudia formalmente si la ley eléctrica contenía precios suficientes para administrar sin cortes y eficientemente caídas drásticas de la cantidad ofrecida de energía y daba los incentivos correctos para invertir en capacidad de reserva. También analizamos en detalle las consecuencias de limitar las compensaciones a usuarios regulados. Concluimos que el sistema de precios

Credit Markets with Differences in Abilities: Education, Distribution, and Growth.

An endogenous growth model is presented in which the existence of credit markets affects time allocation of individuals who differ in education abilities. Credit markets allow the more able to specialize in studying and the less able in working. This specialization can increase growth and welfare by accelerating an economy`s human capital accumulation. This paper

Análisis riesgo-costo para la regulación de substancias tóxicas emitidas a la atmósfera en un contexto de desarrollo: El caso del arsénico en Chile.

Los países en desarrollo están, por lo general, en una etapa incipiente en cuanto a regulaciones ambientales. Chile no es una excepción, y en la actualidad la contaminación por arsénico proveniente de las fundiciones de cobre es un problema serio. Para regular estas emisiones se ha propuesto un estándar de concentración aplicable a todo el

Taxes and Income Distribution in Chile: Some Unpleasant Redistributive Arithmetic.

This paper quantifies the direct impact of taxes on income distribution at the household level in Chile and estimates the distributional effect of several changes in the tax structure. We find that income distributions before and after taxes are very similar (Gini coefficients of 0.488 and 0.496, respectively). Moreover, radical modifications of the tax structure,