Eventos pasados

Seminario CEDE - Juanita González

Seminario CEDE - Julieta Caunedo

Economic activity in developing countries is labor-intensive, low-scale, and fam- ily run, with substantial family managerial time spent supervising hired labor. We use a randomized control trial that subsidizes access to rental equipment markets to study the impact of the adoption of mechanized practices on labor demand, productivity and managerial span of control. The intervention induces greater mechanization in the upstream production stage, and labor savings con- centrated in downstream, non-mechanized stages. The reduction in worker su- pervision needs increases the span of control and allows households to increase non-agricultural income. We use the experimental elasticities to estimate a struc- tural model where farmers make labor supply decisions in the family enterprise and outside of it. The consumption-equivalent welfare from the intervention amounts to 0.9%. The model provides structural estimates of the marginal re- turn to capital at 8.8%, and the shadow value of family labor, 20% below their outside option in non-agriculture. Ver documento

Seminario CEDE - Juliana Salomao

In emerging markets, a significant share of corporate loans are denominated in dollars. Using novel data that includes loan-level currency and the cost of credit, in addition to several other transaction[1]level characteristics, we re-examine the reasons behind dollar credit popularity. We find that a dollar[1]denominated loan has an interest rate that is 2 percentage points lower per year than a loan in local currency. Expectations of exchange rate movements do not explain this difference. We show that this interest rate differential for lending rates is closely matched by the differential in the deposit market. Our results suggest that the preference for dollar loans is rooted in the local depositors preference for dollar savings, and a banking sector that is strongly incentivized to closely match its foreign-currency assets and liabilities. Cross-borrower variation points to competitive pressure among banks to explain the significant pass-through of this differential.

Seminario CEDE - Pascual Restrepo

We document that between 50% and 70% of changes in the US wage structure over the last four decades are accounted for by the relative wage declines of worker groups specialized in routine tasks in industries experiencing rapid automation. We develop a conceptual framework where tasks across a number of industries are allocated to different types of labor and capital. Automation technologies expand the set of tasks performed by capital, displacing certain worker groups from employment opportunities for which they have comparative advantage. This framework yields a simple equation linking wage changes of a demographic group to the task displacement it experiences. We report robust evidence in favor of this relationship and show that regression models incorporating task displacement explain much of the changes in education differentials between 1980 and 2016. Our task displacement variable captures the effects of automation technologies (and to a lesser degree offshoring) rather than those of rising market power, markups or deunionization, which themselves do not appear to play a major role in US wage inequality. We also propose a methodology for evaluating the full general equilibrium effects of task displacement (which include induced changes in industry composition and ripple effects as tasks are reallocated across different groups). Our quantitative evaluation based on this methodology explains how major changes in wage inequality can go hand-in-hand with modest productivity gains.  Ver documento

Seminario CEDE - Paulina Restrepo-Echavarría

This paper quantifies the positive and normative effects of capital controls on international economic activity under The Bretton Woods international financial system. We develop a threeregion world economic model consisting of the U.S., Western Europe, and the Rest of the World. The model allows us to quantify the impact of these controls through an open economy general equilibrium capital flows accounting framework. We find these controls had large effects. Counterfactuals show that world output would have been 6% larger had the controls not been implemented. We show that the controls led to much higher welfare for the rest of the world, moderately higher welfare for Europe, but much lower welfare for the U.S. We interpret the large U.S. welfare loss as an estimate of the implicit value to the U.S. of preventing capital flight from other countries and thus promoting economic and political stability in ally and developing countries. Ver documento

Seminario CEDE - José Alberto Guerra

Can transport infrastructure promote long-term labour opportunities and break the occupation tie between parents and their children? This paper estimates the causal effect of access to the railroad network on intergenerational occupation mobility in nineteenth century England and Wales. We create a new dataset of father and son pairs by linking individuals across the full-population censuses of 1851, 1881 and 1911. By geolocating individuals down to the street level, we measure access to the railroad network using the proximity to the nearest train station. To address the non-random access to the railroad network, we create a dynamic hypothetical railroad based solely on geographic cost consideration. We find that sons who grew up one standard devi- ation (roughly 5 km) closer to the train station were 6 percentage points more likely to work in a different occupation than their father and 5 percentage points more likely to be upward mobile. The majority of the effects are driven by changes in local labour opportunities. Ver documento  

Seminario CEDE - María del Pilar López-Uribe

We investigate the impact of land dispossession of peasants on the origin of the civil conflict in Colombia. Using a matching-pair instrumental variable approach, we show that the historical dispossession of peasants’ lands by landlords that led to the rise of peasant grievances is associated with the presence of the rural guerrilla movement -The Revolutionary Forces of Colombia (FARC)- during the first stage of the Colombian civil conflict (1974-1985). This study exploits variation in floods to identify how peasants’ land dispossessions during the export boom (1914-1946) determine the rise of rural guerrilla movements and the consolidation of their rebel activities. Using a novel municipal-level data set on natural disasters and land dispossession, the study documents that municipalities experiencing floods during the years 1914-1946 were substantially more likely to have land dispossession than municipalities where floods was not severe. Floods reduced temporarily the conditions of the land and its value, facilitating the dispossession of the peasants of their lands by large landowners. We propose two mechanisms through which previous land dispossession facilitated the emergence of rebel armed groups. On the one hand, exposure to previous events of violence gave military training and access to weapons and military experience to the rural population that likely emboldened the formation of rebel groups. On the other hand, the ideological cohesion stemming from radical liberals and communists exacerbated the grievances and helped the emergence of rebel armed groups. Ver documento

Seminario CEDE - Federico Huneeus

This paper investigates the importance of firm-to-firm production network linkages for earnings inequality. We develop a quantitative model in which heterogeneous firms hire workers of different abilities in an imperfectly competitive labor market and source intermediates from heterogeneous suppliers in a production network. The model delivers an earnings equation with a firm-specific wage premium that depends endogenously on both firm productivities and firm-to-firm linkages in the production network. We establish identification of the model parameters and estimate them using linked employer-employee and firm-to-firm transactions data from Chile. Counterfactual simulations using our estimated model show that heterogeneity in network linkages explains 21% of log earnings variance, while passthrough of productivity shocks via network linkages explains between 20-25% of earnings volatility. We also examine the effects of a minimum wage policy and find strong spillover effects to worker earnings above the wage floor, with substitution of materials for labor explaining around 40% of these effects. Ver documento

Seminario CEDE - Laura Castillo-Martinez

Following a sudden stop, real exchange rates can adjust through a nominal exchange rate depreciation, lower domestic prices, or a combination of both. This paper makes three contributions to understand how the type of adjustment shapes the response of macroeconomic variables, in particular productivity, to such an episode. First, using Spanish micro data during the two episodes, it documents that in a currency union unproductive firms exit more than in a floating regime. Second, it proposes a small open economy DSGE model featuring firm selection, variable markups and elastic labor supply to rationalize this finding. The model nests three mechanisms through which a sudden stop affects productivity: a pro-competitive, a cost, and a demand channel. While only the former operates when the nominal exchange rate adjusts, all three are active under a currency union. The model delivers general conditions under which the positive impact of the demand channel on productivity dominates. Third, it validates the model’s aggregate predictions against a wider set of economies. In particular, it shows that the decline in productivity after a sudden stop is increasing in the flexibility of the exchange rate. Ver documento