TAX DATA FOR WEALTH CONCENTRATION ANALYSIS: AN APPLICATION TO SPANISH WEALTH TAX

As recent studies in different countries show, tax data offer the opportunity to estimate income or wealth shares for the upper income groups. However, several critical points must be considered in order to avoid misleading conclusions: the interpolation technique used, legal amendments, and tax fraud. In this note we take Spanish wealth tax as a case study to assess the importance of these factors, and compare our results with those obtained by Alvaredo and Saez (2009 ). Although the results of the two analyses are very similar, our approach complements theirs by offering a more precise treatment of the correction of fiscal underassessment and tax fraud in real estate, which is the main asset in Spaniards' portfolios.     

The Territorial Dimension: The Component of Business Strategy that Prevents the Generation of Social Conflicts

Taking advantage of economic opportunities has led to numerous conflicts between society and business in various geographies of the world. Companies have developed social responsibility programs to prevent and manage these types of problems. However, some authors comment that these programs lack a strategic vision. Starting with the Working with People model, created for the field of rural development planning, this paper proposes a methodology to prevent the generation of social conflicts from business strategy: the territorial dimension. The proposal emphasizes that local development support prevents the generation of social conflicts. Finally, an experience in Peru, a country that has been characterized in recent years by high economic growth and also by the presence of social conflicts that have stopped entrepreneurship is analyzed.     

Effects of family control on the degree and type of diversification: Empirical evidence for business groups

This article analyzes the impact of ownership structure on corporate diversification, with reference to large listed family business groups. By considering agency theory and socioemotional wealth, the study examines the relationship between family ownership, concentration of ownership, and degree and type of diversification. The study considers 99 Spanish listed business groups (50 family‐controlled‐ and 49 nonfamily‐controlled groups) and considers diversification of business group as the focus of analysis. The results show how family business groups present a lower preference for unrelated diversification than related diversification. There is also a nonlinear relationship between the concentration of ownership in family groups and the degree of diversification, showing different behaviors in family groups according to shares owned by the family's leading shareholders. This article contributes to the literature by providing a more precise identification of the corporate strategy adopted by business groups and establishing new evidence about the impact of family control on diversification strategies and the differences regarding nonfamily business groups.     

贸易政策、出口和经济增长——基于拉美国家实证数据的研究

20世纪40年代起,拉美国家采取的是以贸易保护思想为基础的进口替代政策,70年代中期开始,大部分拉美国家开始了以贸易开放、资本开放为核心的“新自由主义改革”。本文首先对拉美对外贸易政策的沿革进行回顾,就拉美的“新自由主义”改革的实效进行了一个基本考察,在此基础上,通过计量模型详细探讨了拉美国家的出口和经济增长的关系。     

Macroprudential policy and the inward transmission of monetary policy: The case of Chile,Mexico, and Russia

This paper studies whether domestic macroprudential policy may attenuate the inward transmission of monetary policy shocks from the United States to domestic bank lending growth in three emerging market economies—Chile, Mexico, and Russia. Identification relies on banks’ heterogeneous exposure to prudential policies and the fact that foreign monetary policy shocks are exogenous from the perspective of these economies. After analyzing the effects of the aggregate domestic prudential policy stance, we focus on specific prudential policies targeting mortgage and consumer loans, as well as foreign‐currency deposits. Although our overall results are mixed, we find evidence that the strength of international monetary policy spillovers varies depending on the stance of domestic macroprudential policy. In particular, a tighter reserve requirement stance over foreign‐currency deposits in Chile dampens the effect of an international monetary policy shock on domestic local‐currency lending, but reinforces that on foreign‐currency lending, whereas in Russia, it dampens the effect on both local‐currency and foreign‐currency lending, although to different degrees. Prudential policies targeting the asset side of banks’ balance sheets, such as mortgage loans or consumer credit, are found to amplify international monetary policy spillovers in some cases and attenuate it in others, depending on the country context.     

Non-elective C-sections in public hospitals: capacity constraints and doctor incentives

Using administrative records of births from the Perinatal Surveillance System of the Peruvian Social Security System (ESSALUD), we test whether high admissions of pregnant women affected non-elective caesarean section (C-section) rates in the ESSALUD public hospitals during 2005–2006. We present a basic theoretical model that considers physician preferences for leisure and hospital capacity constraints, and test the model predictions. We find that physician demand for leisure increases the probability of C-sections in small and medium-size hospitals, while hospital capacity constraints set a limit on them. We discuss the policy implications as well as the policies implemented to avoid unnecessary C-sections.     

Power sharing and electoral equilibrium

This paper considers a model of (consensual) democracy where political parties engage first in electoral competition, and they share policy-making power afterward according with the votes gathered in the election. The paper uncovers the difficulties to guarantee stability in this institutional setting; and it provides a condition of symmetry on parties’ political motivations that ensures the existence of pure strategy equilibrium under a broad family of power sharing rules, ranging from fully proportional to winner-take-all. The equilibrium analysis shows that power sharing and ideology exert a centrifugal force on policy platforms that increases party polarization, with the paradoxical result that consensual democracies can actually lead to more radical electoral campaigns than winner-take-all.     

Economic and environmental efficiency using a social accounting matrix

This paper aims to show the utility of the so-called Social Accounting Matrix and Environmental Accounts (SAMEA) for economic and environmental efficiency analysis. The article uses the SAMEA for Spain in 2000, applied to water resources and greenhouse gas emissions. This matrix is used as a central core of a multisectorial model of economic and environmental performance, and it calculates the denominated “domestics SAMEA multipliers” and their decomposition into characteristic, direct, indirect and induced effects. These multipliers show some evaluation of economic and environmental efficiency. Also, we present an application of these multipliers that demonstrates that there is no causal interrelation between those sectors with higher economic backward linkages and those with higher environmental deterioration backward linkages.