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on Central and South America |
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Issue of 2015‒05‒16
seven papers chosen by |
| By: | Luis V. Bejarano-Bejarano; Jose E. Gomez-Gonzalez; Luis F. Melo-Velandia; Jhon E. Torres-Gorron |
| Abstract: | This study uses a Dynamic Conditional Correlation multivariate GARCH approach for testing for contagion among Latin American financial markets to shocks originated in the United States and Europe. Using daily data on stock market returns for the period comprised between July 4th, 2001 and December 30th, 2013, we find some evidence suggesting two episodes of contagion. The first corresponds to the time of the mortgage subprime crisis in the US, while the second corresponds to the period of sovereign bonds' turbulence in Europe. |
| Keywords: | Financial contagion, Financial crises, Multivariate GARCH models. |
| JEL: | G01 G15 C32 |
| Date: | 2015–05–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:col:000094:012820&r=lam |
| By: | André Braz Golgher (Cedeplar-UFMG); Raquel Zanatta Coutinho (UNC-CH) |
| Abstract: | This paper is the last of a series of five papers that discuss factors associated with well-being in Brazil using the World Values Survey (WVS).The paper has three main objectives. The first is to compare descriptively the most blissful and most miserable individuals in Brazil in the year of 2006. Then, the paper defines the profiles among the Brazilian population and amongst these groups in regard to their responses to self-evaluated health status, marital status, unemployment status, importance given to family, self-determination, religiosity, thick trust and self-evaluated financial situation using Latent Class analysis. Based on these variables, we defined three profiles for the most miserable in Brazil entitled the financially poor, the unhealthy distrustful, and the lonely. For the most blissful, we obtained four profiles: the healthy, the self-determined unhealthy and financially poor individuals, the generalized blissful and the self-determined distrustful individuals. After this, we investigated which socio-demographic aspects are associated with the distribution of individuals among the different profiles using multinomial logistic models. |
| Keywords: | happiness, satisfaction with life, Brazil, LCA, WVS |
| JEL: | I31 |
| Date: | 2014–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cdp:texdis:td512&r=lam |
| By: | Alexis Cavichini (Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro) |
| Abstract: | Between 1995 and 2014 Brazil’s financial system total asset increased from US$ 650 billion, to US$ 3.1 trillion. A growth of 377%. In the same period, the five largest banks bounced from an average loss of US$ 1 billion in 1995 to an average profit of US$ 25.5 billion in 2014. High interest, for enterprises and individuals, have been a major obstacle to the growth of the country. In the last twenty years, average GDP growth in Brazil was 2.6% p.a. This result is meaningfully lower than other developing nations. The objective of this paper is to understand this contradiction between Brazil’s financial system and other segments of the economy, and find answers, opportunities, possibilities, and solutions, which allow Banks to operate at a lower cost, leveraging the economic development of the country. |
| Keywords: | banking concentration, interest rates, brazil, growth, GDP |
| JEL: | E40 E44 E62 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:sek:iacpro:1003929&r=lam |
| By: | Solange Ledi Gonçalves; Ana Flávia Machado |
| Abstract: | Ever-more sophisticated studies on the methodological approach and the conceptual scope of poverty have led to a consensus among scholars on the dynamic characteristic of this phenomenon - in other words, the existence of an in-and-out of privation movement of individuals and families. Within this context, Hulme and Shepherd (2003) defined five groups according to the location of the punctual and average indicators of poverty vis-à-vis the poverty line. This paper’s objective is to adapt this typology to Brazil, using PME (Monthly Job Survey) micro-data for the 2002 - 2011 timeframe and the six Brazilian Metropolitan Regions covered by PME as well as, by estimating a multinomial logit, investigate which family characteristics relate to a greater or lesser chance of belonging to each of the chronic and transitory poverty categories. Categorization allows observation that, despite a sweeping across-the-board decline in the percentage of families in all poverty categories in the past decade, those families always or usually poor display demographic, socioeconomic, access to and insertion into the labor market categories which differ from families in transitory poverty or classified as never poor. Moreover, Northeastern metropolitan regions (Salvador and Recife) have higher percentages of chronic or transitory poverty. Multinomial logit estimates make it possible to verify that families whose members have completed secondary schooling or college or hold a higher-qualified occupation stand lesser chances of entering into or remaining in poverty. Results call for differentiating among poor families, as they enter into or leave poverty - which is tantamount to saying that the dynamics of poverty must be taken into account as public policies are drawn up. |
| Keywords: | poverty dynamics; chronic poverty; transitory poverty; multinomial logit |
| JEL: | I32 I31 D3 |
| Date: | 2015–05–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:spa:wpaper:2015wpecon6&r=lam |
| By: | Luis Eduardo Arango; Gabriela Bonilla |
| Abstract: | We provide evidence of private returns to education and externalities which jointly render social returns in the labor market of Colombia. The spillover in the cities is generated by the share of college educated workers in the working-age population. Thus, the higher is this share in the cities, the higher the wages. The size of the externality is about 0.66; that is, an increase in the share of one percentage point will increase the wage in 0.66%. For highly educated workers the externality is about 0.75 while for low educated it is not significant. The results change in an important way if Bogotá, the capital city of the country, is excluded from the sample. Resources destined by the Colombian Institute for Educational Credit and Technical Studies Abroad (ICETEX) to fund undergraduate and postgraduate studies in provinces affect the outcomes if Bogotá is within the sample. A positive correlation between the size of cities and human capital agglomeration is also observed in such a way that if the former is substituted for the latter, we can still find the spillover. |
| Keywords: | social returns, private returns, externalities. |
| JEL: | J2 J3 |
| Date: | 2015–05–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:col:000094:012788&r=lam |
| By: | Álvaro Zerda Sarmiento |
| Abstract: | El artículo busca establecer la relación entre la política pública relacionada con la industria, formulada desde finales de los años 80 en Colombia y las consecuencias que tuvo tanto sobre la configuración productiva como sobre el mundo del trabajo en el sector. Los resultados apuntan a la ausencia de una política industrial activa por parte de los gobiernos de todo el periodo y el énfasis en una estrategia transversal para introducir ciencia y tecnología a los procesos. Sin embargo el análisis evidencia que este propósito se quedó en el enunciado pues no fueron tomadas acciones específicas para lograrlo. Como consecuencia el patrón de crecimiento nacional se desindustrializó. Los impactos para los trabajadores fueron negativos: disminución del empleo manufacturero frente al empleo total, estancamiento relativo de los salarios reales frente al crecimiento de la productividad laboral y aumento de la brecha en la apropiación del excedente generado. La estructura productiva industrial se transformó hacia una mayor intensidad en bienes relacionados con actividades extractivas, en desmedro de las intensivas en conocimiento, contrario a lo que pregonaba la estrategia oficial. Finalmente, la política económica planteada por el gobierno del Presidente Juan Manuel Santos en su primer periodo no se orientó a cambiar estas tendencias de largo plazo. |
| Keywords: | Desarrollo industrial, Política industrial, Ciencia y tecnología, Modelos económicos, Extractivismo. |
| JEL: | L60 L98 J30 J48 O25 |
| Date: | 2014–08–13 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:col:000178:012830&r=lam |
| By: | Elisa Failache (Universidad de la República (Uruguay). Facultad de Ciencias Económicas y de Administración. Instituto de Economía); Gonzalo Salas (Universidad de la República (Uruguay). Facultad de Ciencias Económicas y de Administración. Instituto de Economía); Andrea Vigorito (Universidad de la República (Uruguay). Facultad de Ciencias Económicas y de Administración. Instituto de Economía) |
| Abstract: | Uruguay exhibits high and persistent repetition and drop-out rates in middle and high school. The aim of this study is to assess the determinants of these problematic outcomes, particularly assessing the role of teenage nutritional history and socio-emotional development (and the related concept of non cognitive abilities). Although the theoretical and international literature pinpoints these aspects as key factors, they have been scarcely assessed in developing countries due to the lack of longitudinal and psychometric data. In this study we use a three waves panel survey, Encuesta de Situacion Nutricional de los Niños, that followed 3200 children in 2004 when they were first graders at public primary schools. Children were revisited in 2006, when they were approximately 8-9 years old and then back in 2011-12 at the age 13-14. The data base includes anthropometric information in the three waves and socio-emotional development outcomes based on the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) created by Goodman (1997). SDQ is divided in 5 scales: emotional symptoms, conduct problems, hyperactivity/inattention, peer relationship problems and prosocial behavior. Our main results show that household income, maternal education and body mass index deficits are strong predictors of repetition in primary and secondary school. At the same time, a low performance in SDQ is highly associated with repetition. Middle school-drop-out is strongly associated to SDQ performance, while no effect of the nutritional trajectory is found. Repetition strongly predicts school drop-out. When considering the five SDQ scales, substantial differences by gender are found: whereas in the case of boys conduct problems are the ones more associated to drop-out episodes, in the case of girls, hyperactivity and socio-emotional aspects are the more relevant elements. These results suggest that repetition and drop-out have strong roots in early childhood outcomes and interventions need to cover a wide range of areas since early stages and not only attacking the problem when it is observed. |
| Keywords: | school attendance, non cognitive abilities, panel data, nutrition, teenagers, SDQ repetition, Uruguay |
| JEL: | I21 I31 J13 |
| Date: | 2015–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ulr:wpaper:dt-06-15&r=lam |