PUSHING THE SISYPHEAN BOULDER? MACROECONOMETRIC TESTING IN LATIN AMERICAN COUNTRIES

What are the implications of the historically observed economic policy instability in Latin American countries (LACs) for macroeconometric testing? Two pressing restrictions on the econometrician using time-series of LACs arise: time-varying parameters and time-varying specifications. Such an instability also has profound impacts on time-series measurements of national accounts at constant prices. This, together with the “second best methodology” used in LACs for computing real GNP, implies that LACs figures on GNP growth reflect growth in gross production rather than in value added. LACs time-series for private consumption are unreliable. Crucial data set constraints in LACs further complicate the task for the econometrician.     

A Real Case Application of Game Theoretical Concepts in a Complex Decision-Making Process: Case Study ERTMS

Group Decision and Negotiation - Engineering systems are complex, amongst others due to the interdependencies between actor and technical aspects. This complexity has consequences for the way of...     

On the economic impacts of COVID-19: A text mining literature analysis

The COVID-19 outbreak has affected everyday lives worldwide. As governments started to implement confinement and business closure measures, the economic impact was felt by entire societies immediately. The urgency of such a theme has led researchers to study the phenomenon. Accordingly, the purpose of this research is to provide the state of the art on relevant dimensions and hot topics of research to understand the economic impacts of COVID-19. In this survey, we conduct a text mining analysis of 301 articles published during 2020 which analyzed such economic impacts. By defining a set of relevant dimensions grounded on existing literature, we were able to extract a set of coherent topics that aggregate the collected articles, characterized by the predominance of a few sets of dimensions. We found that the impact on “financial markets” was widely studied, especially in relation to Asia. Next, we found a more diverse range of themes analyzed in Europe, from “government measures” to “macroeconomic variables.” We also discovered that America has not received the same degree of attention, and “institutions,” “Africa,” or “other pandemics” were studied less. We anticipate that future research will proliferate focusing on several themes, from environmental issues to the effectiveness of government measures.     

The impact of monitor choice on insurer loss reserves

This paper examines the association between monitoring and earnings management by property-casualty insurers. Prior literature has evaluated the impact of auditors and actuaries on insurer reserving. We extend this work by considering the nonrandom nature of monitor assignment. We model the insurer decisions regarding choice of auditor and actuary jointly using a Heckman selection model. Consistent with prior literature, we account for potential loss reserving incentives that may confound these decisions. We find that the use of internal actuaries is significantly related to higher reserve errors, but this is reduced, but not fully offset, when the internal actuary is an officer of the insurer. We find lower reserve error for auditors from a Big N firm. However, the use of an auditor and actuary from the same Big N firm is significantly related to higher reserve errors.     

Focus on cash transfer programs: assessing the eligibility of the Bolsa Família program in Brazil

Quality & Quantity - Income transfer programs are important public policies in fighting poverty and reducing inequality. However, such a strategy is often criticised as being ineffective, as...