The impact of flight delays on passenger demand and societal welfare

US airline passengers increasingly have access to flight delay information from online sources. As a result, air passenger travel decisions can be expected to be influenced by delay information. In addition, delays affect airline operations, resulting in increased block times on routes and, in general, higher carrier costs and airfares. This paper examines the impact of flight delays on both passenger demand and airfares. Delays are calculated against scheduled block times as well as against more idealized feasible flight times. Based on econometric estimations, welfare impacts of flight delays are calculated. We find that flight delays on a route reduce passenger demand and raise airfares, producing significant decreases in both consumer and producer welfare. Since producer welfare effects are estimated to be three times as large as consumer welfare effects, we conclude that from an economic efficiency rationale, airlines should be required to pay for the bulk of flight delay remediation efforts.     

Impacts of vehicle restrictions on urban transport flows: The case of Santiago,Chile

Regression models are employed to quantify the effects of vehicle restrictions on private and public transport passenger flows in Santiago, Chile using trip flow data for cars, buses and the city's Metro rail system. Estimates are derived for the effects of two restrictions: a permanent measure applied from April through August 2008 to vehicles without catalytic converters and additional measures that banned the use of vehicles with catalytic converters between 7:30 am and 9 pm on days declared as environmental “pre-emergencies” due to high air pollution levels. The estimates show that the permanent restriction had no impact on the use of private cars while the additional restriction curtailed their use by 5.5%. Also, on pre-emergency days the flow of passengers to the Metro increased by about 3% while the bus network showed no statistically significant increase. The pre-emergency restrictions thus had an effect on the ridership of the Metro but not on the bus network as alternatives to the use of private cars.     

Tax Amnesties and Income Tax Compliance: The Case of Spain

The aim of this paper is to evaluate the long‐term impact on Spanish individual income tax (IRPF) compliance of the amnesty measures granted in 1991 within the framework of the 1988–91 income tax reform programme. To that end, we combine time‐series techniques with outlier detection methods and the Bai and Perron (1998) test for the endogenous estimation of structural breaks. On the basis of the analysis of the monthly IRPF tax collection series from 1979 to 1998, we find that the amnesty had no effect on tax collection in either the short or the long term. By contrast, we find evidence of the permanent positive impact caused by the legislative and administrative measures linked to the IRPF reform process begun in 1988.     

Crisis Transmission: Evidence from the Debt, Tequila, and Asian Flu Crises

This article analyzes how external crises spread across countries.The authors analyze the behavior of four alternative crisisindicators in a sample of 20 countries during three well-knowncrises: the 1982 debt crisis, the 1994 Mexican crisis, and the1997 Asian crisis. The objective is twofold: to revisit thetransmission channels of crises, and to analyze whether capitalcontrols, exchange rate flexibility, and debt maturity structureaffect the extent of contagion. The results indicate that thereis a strong neighborhood effect. Trade links and similarityin precrisis growth also explain (to a lesser extent) whichcountries suffer more contagion. Both debt composition and exchangerate flexibility to some extent limit contagion, whereas capitalcontrols do not appear to curb it.     

Entry and Prices: Evidence from the Supermarket Sector

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect on prices of the entry of a large supermarket into a given location. We use a panel with data from fifteen cities in Chile for the period 1998:I–2004:IV. We correct for the potential simultaneity problem derived from the fact that entry can be a response to price differentials. We find that the entry of a hypermarket to a given city reduces relative prices in that local market by 7–11%. Most interestingly, we also find that part of this effect takes place the year before the supermarket actually opens for business.      

Can sustainable investments outperform traditional benchmarks? Evidence from global stock markets

To contribute to overcoming global sustainability challenges, investors have been increasingly interested in making sustainable investments and incorporating environmental, social and governance (ESG) criteria into their portfolio selection decisions and managerial activities. However, these investors and other agents interested in sustainable investment need updated and robust information to support their decision making. We analyzed the performance of several Dow Jones Sustainability Indices (DJSIs) and compared them with their respective market benchmarks from 2013 to 2018. The indices comprise the following regions and countries: the world, the Asia‐Pacific, Europe, emerging markets and the US. The analysis was conducted based on both classic and modern portfolio metrics. The results suggest that sustainable investment performance is still heterogeneous worldwide, but there is a promising opportunity for investors to obtain superior risk‐adjusted returns in certain regions while incorporating sustainable investment practices. The findings are of utmost importance to financial market practitioners, business managers, academics and other stakeholders interested in promoting investments, corporate practices and scientific knowledge to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).     

Wealth in Latin America: Evidence from Chile,Colombia, Mexico and Uruguay

Drawing on recently-available microdata from financial surveys, this paper presents harmonized indicators for household wealth, its components, and its determinants in four Latin American countries (Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Uruguay), using Spain as a comparison benchmark. The paper analyzes the relationship between wealth indicators and sociodemographic characteristics of household heads (age, education, gender, marital status). For Uruguay, we are also able to analyze wealth patterns and intergenerational mobility (inheritance, family businesses and parental education).     

Estimating the impact of incidents on urban controlled-access highways: an empirical analysis

An empirical analysis is developed that quantifies the impact of different types of traffic incidents on the speed and maximum flow averages of vehicles on a controlled-access highway. The incident types considered include damage to highway infrastructure, vehicle rollover, crashes (into stationary objects), collisions (with moving vehicles), rain, fog, vehicle breakdowns, pedestrians on roadway, etc. Using real-world data from Chile’s most heavily used urban motorway/freeway, estimates of incident impacts on speed are generated using a multiple linear regression model incorporating instrumental variables to correct for endogeneity. Flow results are then generated using the fundamental traffic equation relating speed, flow and density. A ranking of the impacts on highway traffic of the different incident types based on incident frequency as well as impact size demonstrates that for the real case studied, the incidents with the greatest cumulative effect are (in order of magnitude) vehicle breakdown, collisions and rain.     

A dynamic factor model for nowcasting Canadian GDP growth

This paper estimates a dynamic factor model (DFM) for nowcasting Canadian gross domestic product. The model is estimated with a mix of soft and hard indicators, and it features a high share of international data. The model is then used to generate nowcasts, predictions of the recent past and current state of the economy. In a pseudo-real-time setting, we show that the DFM outperforms univariate benchmarks, as well as other commonly used nowcasting models, such as MIDAS and bridge regressions.