A Latin American Perspective on Trade Policies

This article looks at the trade policy guidelines that the region should follow in order to achieve dynamic international economic linkages, in the light of the international context, the theoretical debates on this subject, and some lessons that may be learned from the study of successful cases. It is posited that in the countries of the region, trade policy can be an instrument for macroeconomic management, fiscal management, and, at the microeconomic level, resource allocation. Its use as a second-best instrument is justified when there are constraints on the use of the best possible solutions. It is also held that there must be close coordination of the policies applied in the fields of trade, industry, and technology to ensure high levels of investment in the tradeable sectors of the economy, a form of competitiveness based on constant increases in productivity, and an improvement in the region's specialization profile. Finally, emphasis is placed on the need to strengthen the institutions of Latin American states in order to ensure that their interventions in the economy have a suitable level of effectiveness.     

Assistance to poor households when income is not observed: targeted in-kind and in-cash transfers

Policymakers frequently design self-targeting programs or target poor areas to assist poor families when income is not observed. Self-targeting schemes take advantage of differences in participation costs in assistance programs across households. Geographic targeting assumes that transfers are solely determined by the region of residence: to receive the benefits, households not initially present in the targeted areas must relocate away from their original place of residence and live with the poor, which entails a cost that can also be interpreted as a participation cost in the assistance program. The paper shows that a combination of in-kind and in-cash transfers tied to the consumption of a publicly provided private good targeted to the poor becomes very useful when non-poor households have different participation costs. By distinguishing users and non-users of public facilities additional in-cash transfers can be directed to the poor more effectively. The paper demonstrates that the publicly provided good ends up being undersupplied, and the distortion becomes less important as participation costs rise. More importantly, it shows that this kind of redistributive program dominates a pure in-cash scheme.     

Holt’s exponential smoothing and neural network models for forecasting interval-valued time series

Interval-valued time series are interval-valued data that are collected in a chronological sequence over time. This paper introduces three approaches to forecasting interval-valued time series. The first two approaches are based on multilayer perceptron (MLP) neural networks and Holt’s exponential smoothing methods, respectively. In Holt’s method for interval-valued time series, the smoothing parameters are estimated by using techniques for non-linear optimization problems with bound constraints. The third approach is based on a hybrid methodology that combines the MLP and Holt models. The practicality of the methods is demonstrated through simulation studies and applications using real interval-valued stock market time series.     

Economic inequality in Spain: the european community household panel dataset

This article uses data from the 1998 European Community Household Panel to study economic inequality in Spain. It reports data on the Spanish distributions of income, labor income, and capital income, and on related features of inequality, such as age, employment status, educational attainment, and marital status. It also reports data on the income mobility of Spanish households, and data on income inequality in other European countries and in the US. We find that income, earnings, and, especially, capital income are very unequally distributed in Spain and that economic inequality in Spain is well above the European average.     

Immigration,Conflict, and Redistribution

In this paper, we analyze how the possibility of conflict between natives and immigrants shapes income redistribution in developed democracies. This possibility can generate income redistribution towards immigrants even if they have no voting rights. We show that the threat of conflict between natives and immigrants lowers vertical income redistribution (from the rich to the poor) as the level of immigration increases. The opposite holds for horizontal income redistribution (from natives to immigrants), which increases with the level of immigration. Income inequality weakens the negative effect of immigration on vertical redistribution, but it also reduces horizontal redistribution. These theoretical predictions are consistent with the results of our empirical analysis on data from 29 European countries: larger immigrant populations are associated with more redistribution towards immigrants and lower vertical redistribution.     

Country performance during the Covid-19 pandemic: externalities,coordination, and the role of institutions

Economics of Governance - The Covid-19 pandemic is one of the most powerful examples of negative externalities in local communities, entire countries and across the globe, calling for the...     

DOES THE ECONOMY MATTER? AN EMPIRICAL ANALYSIS OF THE CAUSAL CHAIN CONNECTING THE ECONOMY AND THE VOTE IN GALICIA

In this paper the causal chain connecting the economy and the vote in 2001 Galician regional elections is analyzed. Our findings demonstrate that economic voting is not just a matter of reactions to economic perceptions. It also depends to a great extent on two intermediate mechanisms: whether or not the incumbent is held responsible for economic outcomes and performance and voters' views of the relative economic management capabilities of opposition parties.