An index of political support for decentralization: the Spanish case

This paper presents a method to make measurable what was not: the discourses of politicians regarding decentralization. For this purpose, we develop a “matrix of arguments” and a set of indexes, and apply them to provide a snapshot of the politicians’ views on the “General Law of Budgetary Stability”, a landmark for the process of decentralization in Spain.     

Colombia’s macroeconomic challenges at the end of the supercycle of commodity prices

The end of the commodity boom presents major challenges for the Colombian economy. The major ones relate to the need to reduce the current account deficit and find new growth engines. A competitive real exchange rate is essential for objectives and requires stronger interventions in the foreign exchange market; these interventions also help to smooth out the trajectory of the inflation rate. Finally, although fiscal adjustment has been adequate, there are fiscal needs associated with the additional public sector spending demanded by the peace agreement and the need to correct the major structural tax imbalances generated by previous tax reforms.     

Privatization of state holding corporations

Many countries have privatized part of their state holding corporations in recent years. However, the literature on this issue has analyzed mainly the privatization of uniproduct public firms. We consider a state holding corporation with two plants that may produce complement or substitute goods. Assuming that private firms are more efficient than the state holding corporation we find the following: If the marginal cost of the state corporation is low, it is not privatized either if goods are substitutes or if they are complements. However, if the marginal cost of the state corporation is high the two plants of the state holding corporation are sold to a single private investor if goods are complements, and to different investors if goods are substitutes. If goods are close substitutes and the marginal cost of the state corporation takes an intermediate value only one plant is privatized. We extend the model to consider that firms are equally efficient, that they face quadratic cost functions and that there are n uniplant private firms producing each good. We find two differences with the previous result: The government never privatizes just one plant of the state corporation, and when goods are complements the two plants of the state corporation are sold to different investors if n is high.     

Estimates of output gaps in four Southeast Asian countries

The output gaps derived for four countries using a generalized Hamilton model are compared with conventional output gap estimates. Further research is needed to explain why the output gap identifies crisis episodes as slowdowns instead of recessions in some countries.     

Balance sheet effects and the country risk premium: An empirical investigation

Based on recent theories emphasizing financial imperfections, this paper is an empirical investigation of the link between a country's risk premium and the balance sheet effect of a devaluation. In a panel of emerging economies, balance sheet effects, due to increased external debt service after an unexpected real depreciation, significantly raise the risk premium. This result is robust to various checks and appears driven by those countries with the largest financial imperfections. Also, particularly large real depreciations turn out to be disproportionately important, meaning that balance sheet effects may be strongest at times of economic crisis. JEL no. F34, F41     

An empirical analysis of transitivity with four scaled preferential judgment modalities

In this paper 6 classes of weak fuzzy transitivity have been considered in a real decision problem: 200 students were asked twice about their future graduation trip, first taking into account only destination, and second considering prices, too. Each group of students compared trips by pairs, where intensities of preference could be shown by 4 linguistic labels represented by numbers from 0 to 1. The results have been analyzed in order to determine the influence of the numbers of alternatives and inherent attributes of the alternatives (destination and money) on the fulfillment of the 6 properties of fuzzy transitivity.Received: 18 February 2002, Accepted: 16 June 2003, JEL Classification: C91The financial support of the Junta de Castilla y León (Consejería de Educación y Cultura, Proyecto VA057/02) and the Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia y Tecnología, Plan Nacional de Investigación Científica, Desarrollo e Innovación Tecnológica (I + D + I) (Proyecto BEC2001-2253) and ERDF are gratefully acknowledged.     

Agricultural competitiveness: The case of the United States and major EU countries

Growth in the agricultural GDP of four major European countries is compared with US agricultural growth for the period 1974–1993. The agricultural sector's relative prices are taken into account along with economy-wide factor market adjustments. For Denmark, France, Germany and the UK, the effects of declining real prices and changes in input levels on growth in agricultural GDP are relatively small. Total Factor Productivity (TFP) growth appears to be the major contributor to European agricultural GDP growth. In comparison, TFP is the major source of growth in US agricultural GDP, but its rate of growth is lower than the European countries. In contrast, the declining real prices for US agriculture had a relatively large effect on its GDP. However, in recent years, the effects of declining real prices and declining rates of growth in TFP on European agriculture are relatively large. In the longer-run, the relative competitiveness of US agriculture is largely dependent on its ability to sustain and increase growth in TFP.     

The Drivers of World Prosperity

The Deputy to the Secretary-General of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development draws attention to the widening gap between rich and poor countries. Taking a global view, progress towards genuine world prosperity has been unsatisfactory. In this thoughiful speech, Mr Fortin focuses on two driving forces in particular: the role of public policy in the development process, and the contribution of the transnational corporation.     

Cities export specialization

We analyse whether more populated cities have an export specialization different from the one of less populated cities. Using very detailed product-level export data for Brazilian urban areas over the period 2000–2013, we show that more populated cities export proportionately more skill-intensive and complex goods than less populated cities. This result is consistent with the larger diversity of skills and the higher share of skilled workers in more populated cities.