This paper studies the historical origins of the federalist institutions in Mexico and Brazil. Using a bargaining game model, I argue that the type of commodities each country produced by the end of the nineteenth Century determined the negotiation power of local governments. This led to the...

Following the Hotelling model of spatial competition used by Massoud and Bernhardt (2002) to analyze competition in ATM fees, in this paper we analyze the effects of banning fees on the usage of ATMs by account holders. We find that the prohibition also reduces the fees charged to non-account...

Using various statistical measures we estimate the degree of comovement and cyclical synchronization of formal employment across Mexican states. As a measure of formal employment we use the number of workers with permanent contracts registered at the Instituto Mexicano del Seguro Social in each...

We analyze forecasts of inflation and GDP growth contained in Banco de México's Survey of Professional Forecasters for the period 1995-2009. The forecasts are for the current and the following year, comprising an unbalanced three-dimensional panel with multiple individual forecasters, target...

This paper studies the effects of remittances from the U.S. on child labor and school attendance in recipient Mexican households. We identify these effects using the impact of the 2008-2009 U.S. recession on remittance receipts. The methodology employed is a differences-in-differences strategy...

In this research paper ARCH-type models are applied in order to estimate the Value-at-Risk (VaR)of an inflation-index futures portfolio for several time-horizons. The empirical analysis is carried out for Mexican inflation-indexed futures traded at the Mexican Derivatives Exchange (MEXDER). To...

We determine the extent of cyclical comovement in employment among the regions of Mexico by analyzing the covariance of the disturbances in regional cycles during the period July 1997 - October 2009. Employment refers to the number of workers with permanent contracts affiliated to the Instituto...

We examine two approaches characterized by different tail features to extract market expectations on the Mexican peso-US dollar exchange rate. Expectations are gauged by risk-neutral densities. The methods used to estimate these densities are the Volatility Function Technique (VFT) and the...

Recent research links the inequality across countries and regions to colonial institutions. This paper argues that trade shocks could alter the development path of a country or subnational units, in spite of its colonial institutions. This hypothesis is analyzed using state-level data for...

This article uses survey data of workers in Japan to study the effects of own and self-reported reference wages on subjective well-being. Higher wages lead to higher life and job satisfaction. When workers perceive that their peers earn higher wages, they report lower well-being. We compare our...