Libros

Resumen 

This paper investigates one of the main arguments behind the Mapuche violent conflict in the south of Chile. Several authors, as well as the media, point out to poverty and high inequality as the central reason explaining the violent conflict in the region of la Araucanía. This study provides a poverty and capability comparative analysis of the Mapuche indigenous group and the rest of the population in the conflict affected Region. Using both monetary and multidimensional poverty indicators, based on data from the 2013 National Socio Economic Characterization survey and information administrative records, the investigation will explore some of the main determinants of poverty. We expect to find significant differences between indigenous and non-indigenous groups, both in terms of poverty status and in the depth of it. This information combined with some qualitative work will shed light on possible explanations for the conflict and thus provide critical information on how to address it by designing inclusive policies that tackle the main causes of poverty and lack of capabilities. The policy prescription could help minimize the violence in the region as well as provide with new opportunities to a population lagging behind mostly due to discrimination.

Resumen

We study the effect of an increase in the hospital choice set on cesarean rates in Chile.  Using data on hospital discharges and births, we exploit a policy change that decreased the cost of delivery in a private hospital for women with public health insurance. The identification strategy relies on the eligibility requirements to access this benefit: eligible women must expect a single child and have a pregnancy of 37 weeks or more. Using these rules, we construct a control group, women expecting multiple children or giving birth at a gestational age of 36 weeks or less, not affected by the policy. Then using a DID identification strategy we estimate the effect on being born on a weekend, gestational age and whether a doctor performs a delivery (proxies for cesarean section), birth weight, and birth height. We find evidence that, after the policy, women in the treatment group are more likely to have a cesarean section and a negative effect on birth weight.

Resumen 

This paper assesses the total contribution of firms to the gender wage gap in Chile using a rich linked employer-employee data set for the 2005-2013 period. We estimate two-way fixed effects models that allow us to quantify and decompose the total contribution of firms to the pay gap into two channels: bargaining power and sorting effects. We also assess the effects of an Equal Pay law passed in 2009 on both channels. We find that firms' total contribution explains about half of the gender wage gap with sorting effects being most important for less-educated workers. We also find that women receive about 88% of the firm-specific premium earned by men. The gender wage gap slightly increases after the Equal Pay law, which does not seem to affect either bargaining power or sorting effects.

Resumen 

We propose a useful way to predict building permits in the US, exploiting rich real time data from web search queries. The time series on building permits is usually considered as a leading indicator of economic activity in the construction sector. Nevertheless, new data on building permits are released with a lag close to two months. Therefore, an accurate now-cast of this leading indicator is desirable. We show that models including Google search queries now-cast and forecast better than our good, not naïve, univariate benchmarks both in-sample and out-of-sample. We also show that our results are robust to different specifications, the use of rolling or recursive windows and, in some cases, to the forecasting horizon. Since Google queries information is free, our approach is a simple and inexpensive way to predict building permits in the United States.

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Resumen

We use issuance-level data to study how capital flows that enter emerging countries affect equity issuance and corporate investment. We find that foreign inflows are strongly correlated with country-level issuance, suggesting that inflows do not entail just an ownership change between domestic and foreign shareholders. Firms issuing in international equity markets and large issuers in domestic markets drive this relation; they are the ones more likely to raise equity when their country receives a capital inflow. The use of MSCI Emerging Markets Index portfolio weights as an instrument for capital flows suggests that shifts in the supply of foreign capital play an important role in our results. Issuers use a substantial portion of their equity proceeds to fund corporate investment, which increases by more than one-half of every million U.S. dollar of foreign equity capital entering the country. 

Resumen 

We quantify the long-run effects on output, aggregate TFP and welfare of alternative permit allocation schemes of a cap-and-trade program. We use a firm dynamics model with heterogeneous firms and add an emission market with a cap-and-trade regulation. We calibrate the model with establishment and emission data in the US and study three permit allocation methods: auctions, output-based-allocation and grandfathering. A 30% reduction in emissions is associated with a welfare cost that is highest for auctioning ($3.3%), followed by grandfathering (1.9%) and, finally, output-based allocation (1.8%). When we introduce an abatement technology, the cost is smaller for all three alternatives, but, unlike the previous case, grandfathering gives the lowest welfare cost.

Resumen 

We study how group composition in an existing training program for Chilean low-skilled adult women may impact its effectiveness. We experimentally separated the target population into groups according to their propensity to work and tested whether offering the program to homogenous groups is more efficient than implementing the program with heterogeneous participants. Because we kept group assignment secret we can estimate the pure effect of group composition, with less of a potentially planned response by the instructors. Our evidence suggests, then, that tracking per-se does not pay off for everyone, but there are benefits from having more diverse peers. In particular we find that non-household heads (relatively less experienced) placed in high-labor attachment groups benefits the most. We argue that these results may come from learning from peers, as network formation is unaffected.