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URI permanent per a aquesta col·leccióhttps://diposit.ub.edu/handle/2445/12569

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Frequent Audits and Honest Audits
(Universitat de Barcelona. Facultat d'Economia i Empresa, 2022) Bizzotto, Jacopo; De Chiara, Alessandro
A regulator hires an auditor to inspect a firm. Audits serve two purposes: to detectviolations and to motivate the firm to invest in compliance. Auditor and firm can colludeto hide violations. Honest audits require sufficient monetary incentives for the auditor,and more frequent audits call for larger incentives. We link the optimal audit frequencyto the budget constraint faced by the regulator, and to the firm’s bargaining powerin the collusive agreement. We show that (i) the optimal audit frequency need notbe monotonic in the regulator’s budget size, (ii) tolerating collusion can foster ex-anteinvestment, and (iii) a regulator that enjoys more flexibility in designing the auditor’scompensation scheme might be less willing to deter corruption.
Maternal employment and childhood malnutrition in Ecuador (WP)
(Universitat de Barcelona. Facultat d'Economia i Empresa, 2022) Andrade Santacruz, José Carlos; Gil, Joan, 1966-
This paper estimates the causal impact of maternal employment on several childhood malnutrition outcomes in Ecuador, to understand the trade-off between the time mothers devote to work and child-caring activities. We use exogenous regional variation in maternal labour market conditions to account for the potential endogeneity of mothers’ employment. Using the Ecuadorian National Health and Nutrition Survey 2018 and the Living Conditions Survey 2014, the instrumental variable estimations indicated that maternal employment increases the probability of having stunted children by between 4.3 and 21 percent, while no significant effect was found on children suffering from wasting, underweight or overweight. We found that children with more educated, richer mothers appeared to be the most negatively affected. The results were robust to several robustness checks.
Do search engines increase concentration in media markets?
(Universitat de Barcelona. Facultat d'Economia i Empresa, 2021) Calzada, Joan; Duch Brown, Néstor; Gil, Ricard
Search engines are one of the main channels to access news content of traditional newspapers. In the European Union, organic search traffic from Google accounts for 35% of news outlets’ visits. Yet, the effects of Google Search on market competition and information diversity are ambiguous, as the firm indexes news outlets considering both domain authority and information accuracy. Using detailed daily data traffic for 606 news outlets from 15 European countries, we assess the effect of Google Search’s indexation on search visits. Our identification strategy exploits nine core algorithm updates rolled out by Google between 2018 and 2020 in order to achieve exogenous variation in news outlets’ indexation. Several conclusions follow from our estimations. First, Google core updates overall reduce the number of keywords that news outlets have in top positions in search results. Second, keywords ranked in top search position have a positive effect on news outlets’ visits. Third, our results are robust when we focus the analysis on different types of news outlets, but are less conclusive when we consider national markets separately. Our paper also analyzes the effects of Google core updates on media market concentration. We find that the three “big” core updates identified in this period reduced market concentration by 1%, but this effect was mostly compensated by the rest of the updates.
Structural change and the income of nations
(Universitat de Barcelona. Facultat d'Economia i Empresa, 2021) Armas, Cynthia; Sánchez-Losada, Fernando
An increase in the supply of skilled labor has been common across the world. However, despite the rise in skilled labor force, not all countries have achieved high income levels, even when their structural transformation follows the same path (from agriculture to industry and, then, from industry to services). Skilled workers might end up in either high or low TFP sectors, according to two opposite theories of structural change (skill-biased structural transformation and stagnant structural transformation). We show that directed technical change is needed to achieve skill-biased structural transformation and, therefore, skilled workers are allocated to high TFP sectors. We present macrodata and microdata evidence to identify the existence of directed technical change. We reveal that in the U.S., South Korea and France, skilled workers have ended up in high TFP sectors due to the existence of directed technical change in the process of structural transformation, but not in Canada. There is a lack of clear evidence for Italy and Spain.
Racial quotas in higher education and pre-college academic performance : evidence from Brazil
(Universitat de Barcelona. Facultat d'Economia i Empresa, 2021) Leal, Guilherme Strifezzi; Choi Mendizábal, Álvaro B. (Álvaro Borja)
The effects of affirmative action on the incentives to human capital accumulation are ambiguous from a theoretical perspective and the scarce empirical evidence on the matter provides mixed results. In this paper, we address this issue by investigating the impacts of Brazil’s Law of Quotas on the students’ performance in the college entrance exam, the ENEM. The law established that a specific share of places in Brazilian federal universities should be filled by non-white students from public high schools. We employ a difference-in-differences approach in order to estimate the effects of the implementation of these quotas on the ENEM scores and provide causal evidence that the law fostered incentives to pre-college human capital accumulation. Moreover, the effects of the quotas were greater in more quantitative-intensive subjects but were not different by gender or parental education, and these impacts increased throughout the first years after the law’s implementation.
A dynamic theory of regulatory capture
(Universitat de Barcelona. Facultat d'Economia i Empresa, 2021) De Chiara, Alessandro; Schwarz, Marco A.
Firms often try to influence individuals that, like regulators, are tasked with advising or deciding on behalf of a third party. In a dynamic regulatory setting, we show that a firm may prefer to capture regulators through the promise of a lucrative future job opportunity (i.e., the revolving-door channel) than through a hidden payment (i.e., a bribe). This is because the revolving door publicly signals the firm's eagerness and commitment to rewarding lenient regulators, which facilitates collusive equilibria. We find that opening the revolving door conditional on the regulator's report is usually more efficient than a blanket ban on post-agency employment and may increase social welfare. This insight extends to a variety of applications and can also be used to determine the optimal length of cooling-off periods.
Segregation and preferences for redistribution
(Universitat de Barcelona. Facultat d'Economia i Empresa, 2021) Tosu, Dilara; Vilalta-Bufí, Montserrat
We study the relationship between segregation and preferences for redistribution in Europe. We measure segregation as the incidence of assortative mating in terms of education and occupation. Assortative mating is measured at the regional level for 10 European countries using the IPUMS data. We combine these data with eight waves of the European Social Survey (2002-2016). We find that increased socioeconomic segregation in most forms of assortative mating leads affluent individuals to support less redistribution. Results suggest that affluent individuals are less socially attached when there are high levels of segregation
Entrepreneurship, growth and productivity with bubbles [WP]
(Universitat de Barcelona. Facultat d'Economia i Empresa, 2021) Clain-Chamosset-Yvrard, Lise; Raurich, Xavier; Seegmuller, Thomas
Entrepreneurship, growth and total factor productivity are larger when there is a financial bubble. We explain these facts using a growth model with financial bubbles in which individuals face heterogeneous wages and returns on productive investment. The heterogeneity in the return of investment separates individuals between savers and entrepreneurs. Savers buy financial assets, which are deposits or a financial bubble. Entrepreneurs incur in a start-up cost and borrow to invest in productive capital. The bubble provides liquidities to credit-constrained entrepreneurs. These liquidities increase investment and entrepreneurship when the start-up cost is large enough, which explains that growth and entrepreneurship can be larger with bubbles. Finally, productivity can be larger when the bubble further increases the investment of more productive entrepreneurs. This can occur when the return of investment is correlated with wages.
Health information and lifestyle behaviours: the impact of a diabetes diagnosis
(Universitat de Barcelona. Facultat d'Economia i Empresa, 2021) Gaggero, Alessio; Gil, Joan, 1966-; Jiménez Rubio, Dolores; Zucchelli, Eugenio
We estimate short- and long-term causal impacts of a type-2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) diagnosis on lifestyle behaviours. We employ a fuzzy regression discontinuity design exploiting the exogenous cut-off value in the diagnosis of T2DM provided by a biomarker (glycated haemoglobin, HbA1c). We make use of unique administrative longitudinal data from Spain and focus on the impact of a diagnosis on clinically measured BMI, smoking and alcohol consumption. We find that, following a T2DM diagnosis, individuals appear to reduce their weight in the short-term. These effects are particularly large among obese individuals and those diagnosed with depression. Patients who are younger, still in the labour market and healthier also present increased short-term probabilities of quitting smoking. In addition, we provide evidence of statistically significant long-term impacts of a T2DM diagnosis on BMI up to three years from the diagnosis. Our results are consistent across parametric and non-parametric estimations with varying bandwidths.
The hidden cost of bananas: pesticide effects on newborns’ health [WP]
(Universitat de Barcelona. Facultat d'Economia i Empresa, 2021) Calzada, Joan; Gisbert i Traveria, Meritxell; Moscoso, Bernard
We study the effects of aerial fumigation of banana plantations on newborns’ birth weight during the period 2015-2017 in Ecuador. We use mothers’ addresses and information on the perimeter of the plantations to create an individual measure of newborns’ exposure to pesticides. We use this measure to implement three independent identification strategies to address the endogeneity of exposure to aerial fumigations. First, we consider a difference-in-differences strategy that exploits seasonal variations in the use of pesticides across provinces. Second, we estimate a difference-in-differences model that considers geographical variations in the use of pesticides across comparable crops. Third, and finally, we estimate a maternal fixed effects model to examine the effect of pesticides on siblings who had a different residence during gestation and who were exposed to different levels of fumigations. Our first empirical model shows that newborns exposed to pesticides, when their first gestational trimester coincides with the periods of intensive fumigations of the plantations, have a birth weight reduction of between 38 and 89 grams. Moreover, exposure to pesticides increases the likelihood of low birth weight and low Apgar score at the first minute by around 0.35 and 0.33, respectively. The second model finds that newborns exposed to fumigated banana plantations have a birth weight deficit of between 29 and 76 grams, when compared to those exposed to other fumigated crops. Finally, the maternal fixed effect model shows that girl newborns exposed to pesticides have a birth weight deficit of 346 grams when compared to non-exposed siblings.
The Impact of ICT on Working from Home: Evidence from EU Countries
(Universitat de Barcelona. Facultat d'Economia i Empresa, 2020) Jerbashian, Vahagn; Vilalta-Bufí, Montserrat
We use data from 14 European countries and provide evidence that the fall in prices of information and communication technologies (ICT) is associated with a significant increase in the share of employees who work from home. Similar results hold within age, gender, and occupation groups. There are notable differences across age groups, however. The effect of the fall in ICT prices on working from home increases with age. A rationale for such a result is that the preference for working from home increases with age.
The Cycle of Rents: a Model of Rational Bull-and-Bear Cycles in an Efficient Market
(Universitat de Barcelona. Facultat d'Economia i Empresa, 2020) Gracia Rodríguez, Eduard
A widespread misbelief asserts that an efficient market would arbitrage out any cyclical or otherwise partially-predictable, non-random-walk pattern on the observed market prices time series. Hence, when such patterns are observed, they are often attributed to either irrational behavior or market inefficiency. Yet, strictly speaking, the efficient markets hypothesis only rules such patterns out of the expected (i.e. mean) path, whereas, if the probability diffusion process is asymmetric (as in most economic and financial stochastic models), the observed time series will approximate the median path, which is not subject to such constraint. This paper combines a general imperfect-competition production function specification (i.e. one generating economic rents) with the concept of time-to-build to develop a rational-expectations, efficient-markets model displaying a valuation cycle along its median path. This model may therefore help to explain the bull-and-bear cycles observed in asset markets generating economic rents e.g. real estate, commodities or, for that matter, most if not all of the assets quoted in the stock exchange.
Mergers, branch consolidation and financial exclusion in the US bank market
(Universitat de Barcelona. Facultat d'Economia i Empresa, 2019) Calzada, Joan; Fageda, Xavier, 1975-; Martínez Santos, Fernando
We analyze the role of bank mergers as determinants of the evolution of branch presence at the county level. Panel regressions based on county-level branch density are used to study differences across urban versus rural counties as well as pre- and post-crisis. The results indicate that bank mergers contributed to the increase of branches in the pre-crisis period and to its reduction in the post-crisis period, but the expansion effect of the mergers before the crisis mainly took place in metropolitan counties. Additional results show that broadband penetration has contributed to the reduction in the number of branches after the crisis and that branch closures are associated with an increase in the share of unbanked and underbanked households at the county level.
Agricultural Composition and Labor Productivity [WP]
(Universitat de Barcelona. Facultat d'Economia i Empresa, 2019) Blanco Aguirre, Cesar Francisco; Raurich, Xavier
Labor productivity differences between developing and developed countries are much larger in agriculture than in non-agriculture. We show that cross-country differences in agricultural composition explain a substantial part of labor productivity differences. To this end, we group agricultural products into two sectors that are differentiated only by capital intensity. As the economy develops and capital accumulates, the price of labor-intensive agricultural goods relative to capital-intensive agricultural goods increases. This price change drives a process of structural change that shifts land and farmers to the capital-intensive sector, increasing labor productivity in agriculture. We illustrate this mechanism using a multisector growth model that generates transitional dynamics consistent with patterns of structural change observed in Brazil and other developing countries, and with cross-country differences in agricultural composition and labor productivity. Finally, we show that taxes and regulations that create a misallocation of inputs within agriculture also reduce the relative labor productivity.
Trade in Information Technologies and Changes in the Demand for Occupations [WP]
(Universitat de Barcelona. Facultat d'Economia i Empresa, 2019) Jerbashian, Vahagn
I use data from the World Input-Output Database and show that trade in information technologies (IT) has a significant contribution to the growth in foregin intermediate goods in 2001-2014 period. China has become one of the major foregin suppliers of IT and has strongly contributed to the rise in trade in IT. The growth in IT imports from China is associated with lower IT prices in sample European countries. The fall in IT prices has increased the demand for high wage occupations and reduced the demand for low wage occupations. From 20 to 95 percent of the variation in the demand for occupations stemming from the fall in IT prices can be attributed to the trade with China.
Firms' ownership, employees' altruism, and competition
(Universitat de Barcelona. Facultat d'Economia i Empresa, 2019) Manna, Ester
The paper investigates how product market competition affects the firms' decision to hire altruistic or selfish employees in a mixed duopoly where a public and a private firm compete against each other on prices and quality. When firms offer similar services, so that product competition is fierce, both firms benefit from hiring altruistic employees even if it leads to lower prices. Conversely, when firms offer sufficiently differentiated services, the private firm prefers to hire selfish employees as starting a price war with the public firm is not profitable. However, the private firm would hire altruistic employees if it faced another private firm. Therefore, when firms offer differentiated products, customers may benefit from the privatization of the public firm, especially when the employees' degree of altruism is high.
Over-education and childcare time [WP]
(Universitat de Barcelona. Facultat d'Economia i Empresa, 2019) Kucel, Aleksander; Vilalta-Bufí, Montserrat
Research shows that over-education has negative effects on individuals in terms of their wage and job satisfaction. In this paper, we study the intergenerational implications of over-education via childcare time. We analyze whether being over-educated affects the time mothers devote to take care of their children. We use the American Time Use Survey from 2004 to 2017. We find that over-educated mothers devote less time to primary childcare than they would do were they matched. The effect of being a college graduate mother on primary childcare time during weekdays is significantly lower when she is over-educated. Results suggest that being over-educated is not a deliberate choice prioritizing family over career.
Corruption and the regulation of innovation
(Universitat de Barcelona. Facultat d'Economia i Empresa, 2019) De Chiara, Alessandro; Manna, Ester
We study the optimal design of regulation for innovative activities which can have negative social repercussions. We compare two alternative regimes which may provide firms with different incentives to innovate and produce: lenient authorization and strict authorization. We find that corruption plays a critical role in the choice of the authorization regime. Corruption exacerbates the costs of using lenient authorization, under which production of socially harmful goods is always authorized. In contrast, corruption can be socially beneficial under strict authorization, since it can mitigate an over-investment problem. In the second part of the paper, we explore the design of bonuses, taxes, and ex-post liability to improve the regulatory outcome.
Socioeconomic burden of mental disorders in Spain 2006-2017
(Universitat de Barcelona. Facultat d'Economia i Empresa, 2019) Stoyanova, Alexandrina Petrova; Pinilla Domínguez, Jaime
Mental health is not only the lack of mental disorders but is considered a crucial resource for overall health and well-being (including employment and productivity). The current paper tries to shed some light on the evolution of mental well-being over a period of 15 years, including the years before, during and after the most recent economic downturn. We use data coming from the Spanish National Health Surveys of 2006/2007, 2011/2012 and 2016/2017. Mental health is proxied by two measures, doctor-diagnosed mental disorder and psychological distress (based on GHQ-12). To account for the causal relationship between the two mental health indicators, we estimate a bivariate probit model. We observe different patterns of the two mental health indicators over time. Psychological distress increased during recession years, due to major risk factors as unemployment and loss of socioeconomic status. Even though the need for mental healthcare increased during the recession, the fact that fewer people were diagnosed suggests that barriers to access to mental healthcare may be aggravated during the crisis.
Platform Price Parity Clauses and Segmentation [WP]
(Universitat de Barcelona. Facultat d'Economia i Empresa, 2019) Calzada, Joan; Manna, Ester; Mantovani, Andrea
We investigate how the adoption of price parity clauses (PPCs) by established platforms affects the listing decisions of suppliers. PPCs have been widely adopted by online travel agencies (OTAs) to force client hotels not to charge lower prices in alternative sales channels. We find that OTAs adopt PPCs when they are perceived as highly substitutable, and in order to prevent showrooming. PPCs allow OTAs to charge hotels higher commission fees. However, hotels can respond by delisting themselves from some OTAs. Hence, our analysis reveals that the removal of PPCs enables more hotels to resort to OTAs. This is beneficial for consumers, as prices decrease in absence of PPCs.

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