42 research outputs found
New information and inflation expectations among firms
No full textUsing data from a unique and novel monthly firm-level survey on inflation expectations in Uruguay we first present stylized facts about the inflation expectation formation process and then show how information acquisition affects firms’ inflation expectations. We show that firms’ forecasts are close to observed inflation, that a sizable proportion of firms do not revise their expectations, and that there is substantial disagreement about future inflation among firms. We also present evidence on industrial sector effects on inflation forecasts and show that the correlation between inflation expectations and cost expectations increases with the forecast time horizon. We then exploit peculiarities of the collective wage bargaining negotiation mechanism to estimate the impact of acquiring information about past inflation on expected future inflation. Our results imply that firms that adjust wages expect lower inflation, revise their expectations downwards and make smaller forecast errors than firms that do not adjust wages. We find no effect of wage adjustments on firms’ own cost expectations and that disagreement among firms is lower in the months of wage adjustment. The latter suggests that inflation expectations tend to converge as firms are more informed about past inflation
Competition and Market Power in the Latin American Banking Sector
No full textThe functioning of the banking sector is key for economic growth. In this paper, we first gather banks\u27 balance sheet monthly regulatory information in a consistent manner for seven Latin American countries. Second, we estimate lending markups and deposits markdowns in each country over time. Third, with the estimated markups and markdowns in the different countries we study how they relate with banks\u27 profitability, the cost of credit, credit risk and credit supply. Finally, we explore whether there are differences in markups on lending rates and markdowns on deposit rates between international and domestic banks
Pension income indexation: a mean-variance approach
No full textThis paper proposes a theoretical framework to study pension income indexation from the retirees’ point of view. The theoretical model is then used to calculate the optimal indexation measure for different cohorts of retirees using historical data from Uruguay. The results suggest that for most of the cohorts, but particularly for those retiring in the 1970s and 1990s, the optimal strategy would be to choose the consumer price index (CPI) as the pension income indexation measure. Even for cohorts retiring after the 1989 Constitutional reform that established the average nominal earnings index (ANEI) as the indexation measure, the CPI is still the preferred indexation measure. To show the robustness of the results, two alternative criteria are used to assess the two indexation measures, with similar results
The untapped skilled labor of Latin America
No full textIncreasingly offshoring is concentrated on IT and business processes rather than on manufacturing. Multinational companies have focused primarily on offshoring skilled work to Asia rather than to Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) countries, neglecting the region's considerable supply of skilled labor. This study projects LAC's skilled labor supply up to 2020.Our study shows that as LAC countries reach the next stage for their demographic transition, a slowdown in population growth rate is expected suggesting that these economies will face the problems posed by an aging population in the decades ahead. Our results also indicate that LAC countries have gradually lost their lead when it comes to year of formal education, being surpassed by other developing countries such as Korea or Taiwan.
Competition and market power in the Latin American banking sector
No full textThe functioning of the banking sector is key for economic growth. In this paper, we first gather banks' balance sheet monthly regulatory information in a consistent manner for seven Latin American countries. Second, we estimate lending markups and deposits markdowns in each country over time. Third, with the estimated markups and markdowns in the different countries we study how they relate with banks' profitability, the cost of credit, credit risk and credit supply. Finally, we explore whether there are differences in markups on lending rates and markdowns on deposit rates between international and domestic banks
The Effect of Pensions on Job Mobility: Empirical Evidence for the UK
No full textIn this paper we study the effect of pension provision on employee turnover in the UK. In Great Britain, there are three forms of pension coverage: the public social security system, occupational pension plans and personal pensions. We focus on the effect of occupational pension plans on job mobility by studying the different patterns formed by workers in Defined Contributions vs. workers in Defined Benefit pension schemes. Using two distinct empirical approaches we find that workers in DB pension schemes are less likely to move jobs than those in DC schemes.
Essays on consumption behaviour related to health and retirement
No full textThis dissertation is concerned with the empirical study of households' decisions on consumption and time use over the life-cycle. The first chapter presents evidence on the role of shocks around the time of retirement as a potential explanation of the retirement-consumption puzzle. We address this issue by studying how expenditure of households in different quartiles of the pre-retirement wealth distribution behaves around the time of retirement and how this is related to health shocks.In the next chapter we focus on consumption over the life-cycle and show how different consumption patterns between workers and pensioners translates into different inflation experiences. We first document the expenditure life-cycle profile in the UK and show how differences in the consumption bundle of pensioners and workers translates into different inflation experiences. In the second part of the chapter we estimate cost of living indexes for pensioners and workers in order to better understand pension income requirements. We estimate a demand system and compute the change in the cost of living and the substitution effect for both pensioners and workers for the period 1990-2009. The last chapter focuses on household decisions related to food consumption and the use of time. Using a combination of food diary data and information on its nutritional content, we compile a unique time series of microdata on calorie and food purchases in England spanning over more than 30 years. We measure calories from food at home purchases over the whole time series, but using a combination of observed and imputed data, are also able to fill the gap of knowledge about calories from other foods and drinks: eating out and alcohol. In addition to this, we also show data on bodyweight, calorie purchases and calories expended in different activities
