Ciencias de la complejidad: estado actual

Los aportes teóricos y aplicados de la complejidad en economía han tomado tantas direcciones y han sido tan frenéticos en las últimas décadas, que no existe un trabajo reciente, hasta donde conocemos, que los compile y los analice de forma integrada. El objetivo de este proyecto, por tanto, es desarrollar un estado situacional de las diferentes aplicaciones conceptuales, teóricas, metodológicas y tecnológicas de las ciencias de la complejidad en la economía. Asimismo, se pretende analizar las tendencias recientes en el estudio de la complejidad de los sistemas económicos y los horizontes que las ciencias de la complejidad ofrecen de cara al abordaje de los fenómenos económicos del mundo globalizado contemporáneo.

The role of media networks in compensating political biases: evidence from radio networks in Brazil

A central question in political economy is how to incentivize elected socials to allocate resources to those that need them the most. Research has shown that, while electoral incentives lead central governments to transfer fewer funds to non-aligned constituencies, media presence is instrumental in promoting a better allocation of resources. This study evaluates how these two phenomena interact by analyzing the role of media in compensating political biases. In particular, we analyze how media presence, connectivity and ownership affect the distribution of federal drought relief transfers to Brazilian municipalities. We find that municipalities that are not aligned with the federal government have a lower probability of receiving funds conditional on experiencing low precipitation. However, we show that the presence of radio stations compensates for this bias. This effect is driven by municipalities that have radio stations connected to a regional network rather than by the presence of local radio stations. In addition, the effect of network-connected radio stations increases with their network coverage. These findings suggests that the connection of a radio station to a network is important because it increases the salience of disasters, making it harder for the federal government to ignore non-allies. We show that our findings are not explained by the ownership and manipulation of media by politicians.

Betting on winner: the effect of local elections on corporate political activity outcomes

How can managers successfully access political rents by way of corporate political strategies (CPA)? Existing research has suggested several endogenous factors that correlate with CPA outcomes. I offer a more robust solution to this problem. Drawing on insights from the perspective of CPA as exchanges between firms and political decision-makers, and from the special interest politics of political economy, I develop and test a causal mechanism that links local elections, legislative bargaining and access to political rents at the national level. I conducted a natural experiment using regression discontinuity design and propensity score matching in municipal elections in Brazil to show that firms enjoy superior access to subsidized financing from the state-owned national development bank (BNDES) when they decide to invest in municipalities whose winning mayoral candidate is coalition-aligned with the national ruler. This effect fades away fades away as the level of competition in the local election decreases. The evidence implies that when managers bet on national coalition-aligned winners in close local elections, they positively affect CPA outcomes. I extend the exchange-based typology of corporate political strategies by offering a novel possibility of targeting voters with financial inducements, which I call a private local development strategy. Finally, these results show that firms exchange their project-execution capabilities for superior access to subsidized financing.

The Limits of political compromise: debt ceilings and political competition

We study the desirability of limits on the public debt and of political competition in an economy where political parties alternate in office. Due to rent-seeking motives, incumbents have an incentive to set public expenditures above the socially optimal level. Parties cannot commit to future policies, but they can forge a political compromise where each party curbs excessive spending when in office if it expects future governments to do the same. In contrast to the received literature, we find that strict limits on government borrowing can exacerbate political-economy distortions by rendering a political compromise unsustainable. This tends to happen when political competition is limited. Conversely, a tight limit on the public debt fosters a compromise that yields the efficient outcome when political competition is vigorous, saving the economy from immiseration. Our analysis thus suggests a legislative tradeoff between restricting political competition and constraining the ability of governments to issue debt.

Foreign support, internal political disputes and mass killings

This paper studies the incentives underlying the relations between foreign countries and rival domestic groups. It models the interaction in a infinitely-repeated game between these three players. The domestic groups bargain for a split of the domestic surplus and may engage in violent dispute for power and in unilateral mass killing processes. The foreign country may choose to support one of these groups in exchange for monetary transfers. The paper characterizes the parametric set in which strategies leading to no violent disputes nor mass killings are Subgame Perfect Nash Equilibra in the presence of foreign support, but not in its absence.

International migration, capital flows and the global economy: a long run view

Includes bibliography

Political instability, institutional quality and social conflict in the Andes

Includes bibliography

The economy, conflict and governance in Colombia

Includes bibliography

How political economies affect immigrants' socio-economic incorporation. A comparative analysis of immigrants’ poverty risks across advanced industrialised countries

Immigration and the resulting increasing ethnic diversity have become an important characteristic of advanced industrialised countries. At the same time, the majority of the countries in question are confronted with structural transformation such as deindustrialisation and changes in family structures as well as economic downturn, which limit the capacities of nation-states in addressing rising inequality and supporting those individuals at the margins of the society. This paper addresses both issues, immigration and inequality, by focusing on immigrants’ socio-economic incorporation into the receiving societies of advanced industrialised countries. The aim of this paper is to explain cross-national variation in immigrants’ poverty risks. Drawing on the political economy as well as the migration literature, the paper develops a theoretical framework that considers how the impact of the national labour market and welfare system on immigrants’ poverty risks is moderated by the integration policies, which regulate immigrants’ access to the labour market and social programs (or immigrants’ economic and social rights). The empirical analysis draws on income surveys as well as a newly collected data set on economic and social rights of immigrants in 19 advanced industrialised countries, including European countries as well as Australia, and North America, for the year 2007. As the results from multilevel analysis show, integration policies concerning immigrants’ access to the labour market and social programs can partly explain cross-national variations in immigrants’ poverty risks. In line with the hypothesis, stricter labour market regulations such as minimum wage setting reduce immigrants’ poverty risks stronger in countries where they are granted easier access to the labour market. However, concerning the impact of more generous social programs the reductive poverty effect is stronger in countries with less inclusive access of immigrants to social programs. The paper concludes by discussing possible explanations for this puzzling finding.

El problema de la pobreza en la utopía aristotélica

La pobreza ha sido una cuestión vinculada a la justicia desde Platón a Thomas Pogge. El objetivo del presente texto es hacer hincapié en que Aristóteles establece que la pobreza es un mal en sí misma, fuente de conflictos sociales que -él piensa- una sociedad justa debería evitar. Por una parte, el lado histórico de la teoría aristotélica de la pobreza plantea que la democracia paradigmática promueve alguna clase de bienestar. Por otra parte, la faceta utópica expone los pensamientos de Aristóteles acerca de una sociedad ideal donde el crecimiento de la clase media reduce la lucha entre ciudadanos ricos y pobres. Sucintamente, encuentro en la filosofía política clásica lo que denomino una "Economía utópica del bienestar". Por lo tanto, me adhiero a aquellos que ven el origen de la teoría de los derechos humanos en Grecia Clásica

El problema de la pobreza en la utopía aristotélica

La pobreza ha sido una cuestión vinculada a la justicia desde Platón a Thomas Pogge. El objetivo del presente texto es hacer hincapié en que Aristóteles establece que la pobreza es un mal en sí misma, fuente de conflictos sociales que -él piensa- una sociedad justa debería evitar. Por una parte, el lado histórico de la teoría aristotélica de la pobreza plantea que la democracia paradigmática promueve alguna clase de bienestar. Por otra parte, la faceta utópica expone los pensamientos de Aristóteles acerca de una sociedad ideal donde el crecimiento de la clase media reduce la lucha entre ciudadanos ricos y pobres. Sucintamente, encuentro en la filosofía política clásica lo que denomino una "Economía utópica del bienestar". Por lo tanto, me adhiero a aquellos que ven el origen de la teoría de los derechos humanos en Grecia Clásica

El problema de la pobreza en la utopía aristotélica

La pobreza ha sido una cuestión vinculada a la justicia desde Platón a Thomas Pogge. El objetivo del presente texto es hacer hincapié en que Aristóteles establece que la pobreza es un mal en sí misma, fuente de conflictos sociales que -él piensa- una sociedad justa debería evitar. Por una parte, el lado histórico de la teoría aristotélica de la pobreza plantea que la democracia paradigmática promueve alguna clase de bienestar. Por otra parte, la faceta utópica expone los pensamientos de Aristóteles acerca de una sociedad ideal donde el crecimiento de la clase media reduce la lucha entre ciudadanos ricos y pobres. Sucintamente, encuentro en la filosofía política clásica lo que denomino una "Economía utópica del bienestar". Por lo tanto, me adhiero a aquellos que ven el origen de la teoría de los derechos humanos en Grecia Clásica