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- Volume 2018, Issue 124, 2018
CEPAL Review - Volume 2018, Issue 124, 2018
Volume 2018, Issue 124, 2018
Cepal Review is the leading journal for the study of economic and social development issues in Latin America and the Caribbean. Edited by the Economic Commission for Latin America, each issue focuses on economic trends, industrialization, income distribution, technological development and monetary systems, as well as the implementation of reforms and transfer of technology. Written in English and Spanish (Revista De La Cepal), each tri-annual issue brings you approximately 12 studies and essays undertaken by authoritative experts or gathered from conference proceedings.
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More unequal or less? A review of global, regional and national income inequality
Authors: Verónica Amarante and Maira ColacceThis article presents a multi-perspective discussion of trends in income inequality. Recent evidence from many sources shows that global income inequality is high and relatively stable, with the main changes being driven by developments in China and India. In developed countries, the trend has been towards higher levels of inequality over the last thirty years; and this has also been true of developing countries in the past decade, with the exception of Latin America, which is analysed here in detail. In the region, income became less unevenly distributed between 2002 and 2014, mainly because inequality within countries declined in most cases; but the latest measurements suggest that this trend is faltering.
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Estimation of factors conditioning the acquisition of academic skills in Latin America in the presence of endogeneity
This article identifies the main determinants of skill acquisition in Latin America. Not having repeated a grade, sex, the number of books in the home and the mother’s education are defined as individual and family characteristics. In the case of school characteristics, the results are more heterogeneous between countries. The key factors seem to be attending a private school, the number of students per classroom, the quality of the educational materials available, and larger school size and autonomy. The characteristics of the schools explain most of the variability of the results, followed by family characteristics and then individual ones. School-based factors play a particularly crucial role in Argentina, Brazil and Costa Rica; family characteristics are very important in Chile, Colombia and Peru; and individual ones are important in Colombia and Mexico.
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The impact of fiscal decentralization on growth, inflation and inequality in the Americas
Author: Antonio N. BojanicThis paper analyses the impact of fiscal decentralization on economic growth, inflation and Gini coefficients in 12 countries of the Americas. The findings suggest that the positive impact of this process has been more modest than anticipated, with revenue decentralization having a detrimental effect on economic growth and expenditure decentralization a positive one in developing nations of the Americas. Regarding the impact on income inequality, the results indicate that fiscal decentralization can play an important role in reducing this, particularly on the revenue side, but when decentralization is analysed in developing nations of the Americas only, fiscal decentralization is shown to accentuate rather than mitigate income inequality, which highlights the significant amount of work that is yet to be done before this process delivers on expectations. The findings for the impact of fiscal decentralization on price stability are inconclusive.
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Foreign direct investment and growth in developing countries: Evidence from the countries of the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States
Authors: Nlandu Mamingi and Kareem MartinThis paper empirically explores the relationship between foreign direct investment (FDI) and economic growth in the countries of the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS). To reach that goal, the paper utilizes panel data consisting of annual data covering the period 1988-2013 from 34 countries, including the six OECS economies, and estimates a dynamic panel growth model using the generalized method of moments (GMM). The empirical results show that although FDI positively affects growth, its impact is minimal when considered in isolation. In other words, its significant effect is rather indirect. There is also a strong and positive interaction between infrastructural development and FDI in enhancing economic growth, but FDI crowds out domestic investment. These findings have policy implications.
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The wealth gifted to the large-scale copper mining industry in Chile: New estimates, 2005-2014
Authors: Gino Sturla Zerene, Ramón E. López, Eugenio Figueroa B. and Simón Accorsi O.This article estimates the economic rents received by the 10 mines that comprise Chile’s large-scale private-sector copper-mining industry. The methodology used produces a conservative calculation and includes two corrections that have hitherto been ignored in the literature: the reimbursement of exploration expenses and the compensation needed for volatility in the copper price. Estimates show that the wealth transferred to these firms between 2005 and 2014 was at least US$ 114 billion. These rents are neutral in terms of investment and production decisions; in other words, if the private mining companies had paid the Chilean Treasury the calculated amount, their total investment and output would have been unchanged, but the country at large could have benefited from the huge voluminous resources in question. Moreover, in the absence of any other distortion, the firms would still have earned returns equivalent to what they would have obtained under perfect competition.
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Sectoral and regional determinants of firm dynamics in developing countries: Evidence for low-, medium- and high-tech manufacturing in Argentina
Author: Carla Daniela CaláThis study analyses the determinants of firm dynamics in developing countries, using Argentina as an illustrative case. It explains firm entry and exit at the regional level, distinguishing three groups of manufacturing activities: low-, medium- and high-tech. The study finds that both region- and sector- specific determinants explain firm dynamics, but the impact is not homogeneous across sectors. In particular, for low-tech industries, there is a need for explanatory variables as a proxy for the specificities of developing economies (poverty, informal economy and idle capacity). There is also evidence of a core-periphery pattern according to which agglomeration economies and previous entries/exits have different effects in core and peripheral regions. These results are relevant for policymakers in developing countries, who should take into account not only the specificities of such economies, but also the regional heterogeneity both in terms of the level of development and industrial composition within the country.
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Business cycles, expectations and inflation in Brazil: A New-Keynesian Phillips curve analysis
This article analyses Brazil’s recent inflation dynamic, considering different expectations environments within the New-Keynesian Phillips curve framework, to observe how the potential for discretionary behaviour by the monetary authority can interfere in economic agents’ forward-looking expectations, and how that interference can affect the way inflation responds to its inertial component and to business-cycle fluctuations. To that end, the study estimates the New-Keynesian Phillips curve and its hybrid version, using the heteroscedasticity-and-autocorrelation-consistent (HAC) estimator of the generalized method of moments (GMM). The results suggest that, when economic agents possess lower degrees of foresight, inflation will be more sensitive to business-cycle fluctuations the larger is its inertial component. Keywords
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Trade facilitation and its effects on Chile’s bilateral trade between 2006 and 2014
This study analyses the effects of trade facilitation on Chilean exports in 2006-2014. It reviews evidence and studies on trade facilitation and its effects, mainly in South America; and it analyses Chile’s export basket. An extended gravity model is then estimated for Chile’s bilateral trade flow with 89 countries, to measure the effect of trade facilitation during the period analysed. The estimation is performed using static panel data with fixed, random and dynamic effects. The key results show that the estimation that best describes Chile’s export behaviour is that which uses static panel data with random and dynamic effects and two lags of the dependent variable (exports). They show that per-container export costs have a negative effect on this trade flow.
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Gender equity in the Argentine tax system: An estimation of tax burdens by household type
Author: Darío RossignoloThe purpose of this paper is to introduce the gender dimension into the analysis of tax incidence in Argentina. To that end, the impact of direct and indirect taxes on income and distribution by gender is calculated to establish the progressivity of taxes and the effects on gender equity when household classifications are analysed. The findings show that while the tax system is moderately progressive and the heaviest burden falls on households with male breadwinners, differences emerge when the impact of indirect and direct taxes is considered separately. The indirect tax system is heavily regressive and female-breadwinner households bear the largest burden, since they are concentrated in the lower income brackets. Households with children bear the highest direct tax burden, particularly male-breadwinner and dual-earner households.
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Fiscal sustainability and the cyclically adjusted balance policy: Methodology and analysis for Chile
Authors: Mauricio G. Villena, Cristóbal Gamboni and Andrés TomaselliThis paper sets forth a framework for analysing fiscal sustainability in the Chilean economy. It starts by making an ex post calculation of indicators of vulnerability and fiscal sustainability, based on the estimation of a sustainable debt level, with public finances considered in stationary state. It then develops an ad hoc dynamic fiscal sustainability model for Chile’s public finances, which for the first time incorporates the dynamic of the Pension Reserve Fund (FRP) with its accumulation and disbursement rules, together with the cyclically adjusted balance policy. Lastly, the study simulates the path of the budgetary central government’s net debt up to 2025, using the projections made in the 2018 Public Finance Report, under a macroeconomic trend scenario and another adverse scenario, all framed by the cyclically adjusted balance rule.
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