This paper considers the economic implications of having unit roots in stochastic processes of variables like consumption or GDP. Using a variety of models, we develop indirect tests for unit roots based on sharp distinctions that should arise when the scale variable is either difference...

This paper uses different methods to evaluate the performance of students of public, subsidized, and private schools; distinguishing among for-profit and non-profit schools.

Chile put into place broad free trade agreements (FTAs) with its two major trading partners: the EU (effective 2003) and the US (effective 2004). This paper quanti- fies their economic effects for the Chilean economy, stemming from the conventional trade components (lower tariffs and higher...

This paper uses several econometric models to evaluate the determinants of the outcomes of the World Cup Qualifying matches played in South America. It documents the relative importance of home-field advantage and other factors. Contrary to popular belief, altitude appears not to be an important...

One of the pillars of the educational voucher system instituted in Chile is that competition among schools to attract students would improve the quality of the education provided. Surveys have suggested that families rank the distance of the school from their home as the most important factor...

Recent policy proposals call for setting up a benchmark indexed bond market to prevent "Sudden Stops". This paper analyzes the macroeconomic implications of these bonds using a general equilibrium model of a small open economy with financial frictions. In the absence of indexed bonds, negative...

In our paper we investigate how network effects influence the dynamics of oligopoly on mature telecommunication markets. The model covers four categories of agents: telecommunication operators, customers joined into housholds and market regulator. The market state aware firms use reinforcement...

This paper sets out first, to quantify the stabilization gains from commitment in terms of household welfare and second, to examine how commitment to an optimal or approximately optimal rule can be sustained as an equilibrium in which reneging hardly ever occurs. We utilize an influential...

Efficient algorithms for diagnosing influential data points are investigated. Techniques examining potentially influential subsets are considered. Given a list of candidate observations, a new row-dropping algorithm (RDA) computes all possible observation-subset regression models. It employs a...