Political budget cycles and voting within a federal country: The influence of political alignment

Enviado por jogarcia el Mié, 01/01/2020 - 11:14

We study how distributive politics affects political budget cycles and voting within a federal country. Our model predicts not only that the president favors politically aligned governors with larger transfers, but also that voters favor gubernatorial candidates aligned with the expected presidential incumbent because larger transfers are expected in the future. These predictions are upheld by the data from Argentinean provinces during the 1984–2014 period. Our findings imply that political alignment can trump the selection effect of voting the most competent candidate.

The Value of the Risk to Life in the Context

Enviado por jogarcia el Mar, 24/09/2019 - 11:20

The value of the risk to life is a key element for benefit-cost analysis, enabling more rational public policy decisions in diverse areas as environmental, health, and crime.Wevalue the risk to life in the context of crime using a discrete choice experiment (CE). The method has clear advantages in that it applies to the whole population and does not require vast data from labor markets, for example.

A plan for dollarizing Argentina

Enviado por jogarcia el Mar, 24/09/2019 - 11:09

For many reasons, dollarization is an efficient and realistic option for this country. Yet, in order to last, it must be able to withstand banking panics without the assistance of a conventional lender of last resort and the lobby of protected industries to revoke dollarization. To this end, we advance a model of commercial banking close to that of Panama, under foreign law, and argue for free trade agreements with superpowers to smooth out real-exchange rate fluctuations.

Paying for Kidneys? A Randomized Survey and Choice Experiment

Enviado por jogarcia el Sáb, 24/08/2019 - 11:17

We conducted a randomized survey with 2,666 US residents to study preferences for legalizing payments to kidney donors. We found strong polarization, with many participants supporting or opposing payments regardless of potential transplant gains. However, about 18 percent of respondents would switch to favoring payments for sufficiently large increases in transplants. Preferences for compensation have strong moral foundations; participants especially reject direct payments by patients, which they find would violate principles of fairness.

Siete Propuestas para Continuar Cambiando la Realidad Educativa

Enviado por eez@ucema.edu.ar el Mié, 03/07/2019 - 16:41

La Argentina vive una real crisis educativa, carece de sentido negarlo. Este paper presenta siete propuestas las cuales, a mi entender, le permitirían al Gobierno tomar enérgicamente la iniciativa frente a una crisis que, sin duda, ha heredado y es imprescindible que logre revertir. Siete propuestas que no se enfocan solamente en la educación de los niños, sino también de los jóvenes y adultos, muchos de los cuales subsisten gracias a planes sociales. Siete propuestas, algunas muy sencillas de implementar, otras más atrevidas. Creo que en este año electoral vale la pena discutirlas

Bank branches efficiency under management and regulatory constraints

Enviado por jogarcia el Mié, 12/06/2019 - 11:08

The main purpose of this paper is to assess the cost-efficiency of Banco Ciudad de Buenos Aires’s bank branches using a Stochastic Frontier Analysis (SFA). Owing to the results, management can decide on a new branching dimension. Also, if some regulatory or managerial limits could be lifted, such as the closure or opening of new branches without central bank authorization, or redundancy staff reduction, the results could be important for management. We identify best and worst behaved branches.

Benchmarking Labor Courts: An Efficiency Frontier Analysis

Enviado por jogarcia el Dom, 05/05/2019 - 10:56

Our aim is to answer: What are the average efficiency levels of the Argentine labor courts and how do they behave individually with respect to the average? Which are the determinants of the relative efficiency levels of those courts? Are there opportunities to introduce incentives which increase the efficiency of the courts? In doing so we estimate a Data Envelopment Analysis efficiency frontier, and in a second stage we analyze the efficiency scores drivers and the Judiciary career incentives.

Vouchers Educativos. Mitos y Realidades

Enviado por eez@ucema.edu.ar el Jue, 02/05/2019 - 16:36

Este paper reproduce la exposición que he realizado el lunes 1 de octubre pasado en la Academia Nacional de Educación. Al decidir el tema sobre el cual realizarla me surgió naturalmente la posibilidad de hacerlo sobre vouchers educativos, con el objetivo que hace años tengo en mente: sembrar la duda que la libertad educativa es una idea que merece ser considerada como una alternativa plausible para nuestro país.

Tributación sin representación: Argentina desde 1983

Enviado por jogarcia el Dom, 24/03/2019 - 11:22

La Argentina no es representativa ni federal por dos anomalías constitucionales: se viola la representación del pueblo porque las provincias con la mayoría de habitantes (Buenos Aires, Córdoba, Mendoza y Santa Fe) tienen una minoría de representantes en la Cámara de Diputados; la coparticipación de impuestos no se basa en criterios objetivos, equitativos y solidarios, por lo que la provincia de Buenos Aires es pisoteada (recibió un tercio de los recursos por habitante de otras provincias en 2016). Ambas son legados de gobiernos de facto, conservadas por un Congreso no representativo.