Essays on Industrial Organization and Development Economics

Essays on Industrial Organization and Development Economics PDF Author: Andrea Szabo
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 124

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Essays on Industrial Organization and Development Economics

Essays on Industrial Organization and Development Economics PDF Author: Andrea Szabo
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 124

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Book Description


Essays in Development Economics and Industrial Organization

Essays in Development Economics and Industrial Organization PDF Author: Diego Javier Jiménez Hernández
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

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This dissertation contains three essays in development economics and industrial organization. In the first chapter, coauthored with Enrique Seira, we study a nationwide welfare program in Mexico in which the government, in an effort to eliminate hunger, sells milk to households at subsidized rates via a network of thousands of specialized ``ration stores.'' Existing in many countries, such direct-provision programs often appear puzzling to economists, as it seems unlikely that the government would have any comparative advantage over the private market in procuring and distributing milk. To understand direct provision, we develop and estimate an equilibrium model of the market, then use the model to compare this program against natural (budget-neutral) alternatives, such as milk vouchers or unrestricted cash transfers. Using rich household-level panel data and the variation generated by the staggered introduction of new government stores, we show that market power by private milk suppliers is an important concern and that government-sold and privately-sold milk are close (though imperfect) substitutes. Consequently, direct provision plays an important role in the milk market in Mexico by disciplining private-milk prices. Indeed, our results suggest that in the absence of government milk, private market prices would be 3% higher. Moreover, direct provision generates 4% more gains in consumer welfare relative to milk vouchers and 2% more relative to unrestricted cash transfers. In the second chapter, co-authored with Sara G. Castellanos, Aprajit Mahajan, and Enrique Seira, we study expanding financial access (particularly borrowing) to underserved populations. Credit card debt is increasingly common among poor and inexperienced borrowers -- thus de facto a financial inclusion product. However, it remains relatively under-studied. We use detailed card level data and a product that accounted for 15% of all first-time formal loans in Mexico and show that default rates are high and ex-ante unpredictable for new borrowers -- suggesting an important role for ex-post contract terms in limiting risk. However, using a large nationwide experiment we find that default is unresponsive to minimum payment increases, a commonly proposed policy remedy. We provide evidence that the zero result is driven by the offsetting effects of tightened liquidity constraints and lower debt burdens. Surprisingly, we also find muted default responses to large experimental changes in interest rates -- suggesting a limited role for ex-post moral hazard in our context. Finally, we use job displacements to document large effects of unemployment on default, highlighting the centrality of idiosyncratic shocks as a barrier to the expansion of formal credit among poorer populations. In the third and last chapter, coauthored with Joshua J. Kim and Aleksandr Shirkhanyan, we study savings in Armenia, particularly focusing on a unique problem that households in the developing world often face: how to safely store their assets when the value of their local currency is unstable. This instability leads to several complicated decisions households must make, such as how much to save and which currencies to save in. These choices are especially important for households during periods of macroeconomic volatility such as currency depreciations. In this paper, we study how households make such savings decisions following a large currency depreciation in Armenia. We exploit the unique structure of Armenian financial instruments, which generates quasi-random variation in which savers are nudged into paying attention to the depreciation. We then study how this random difference in initial attention affects the future savings choices that individuals make. Using a differences-in-differences design, we find that individuals who received a nudge to pay attention to the currency depreciation significantly reduced their total savings, held their savings for shorter periods of time, and chose to save their assets in USD. We find that these effects are strongest for individuals who predominantly saved in the domestic currency and individuals who are less financially sophisticated. We also find that while some of the differences in savings decisions are temporary, others persist long after the original depreciation event.

Essays in Development Economics and Industrial Organization

Essays in Development Economics and Industrial Organization PDF Author: Diego Javier Jimenez Hernandez
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
This dissertation contains three essays in development economics and industrial organization. In the first chapter, coauthored with Enrique Seira, we study a nationwide welfare program in Mexico in which the government, in an effort to eliminate hunger, sells milk to households at subsidized rates via a network of thousands of specialized ``ration stores.'' Existing in many countries, such direct-provision programs often appear puzzling to economists, as it seems unlikely that the government would have any comparative advantage over the private market in procuring and distributing milk. To understand direct provision, we develop and estimate an equilibrium model of the market, then use the model to compare this program against natural (budget-neutral) alternatives, such as milk vouchers or unrestricted cash transfers. Using rich household-level panel data and the variation generated by the staggered introduction of new government stores, we show that market power by private milk suppliers is an important concern and that government-sold and privately-sold milk are close (though imperfect) substitutes. Consequently, direct provision plays an important role in the milk market in Mexico by disciplining private-milk prices. Indeed, our results suggest that in the absence of government milk, private market prices would be 3% higher. Moreover, direct provision generates 4% more gains in consumer welfare relative to milk vouchers and 2% more relative to unrestricted cash transfers.In the second chapter, co-authored with Sara G. Castellanos, Aprajit Mahajan, and Enrique Seira, we study expanding financial access (particularly borrowing) to underserved populations. Credit card debt is increasingly common among poor and inexperienced borrowers -- thus de facto a financial inclusion product. However, it remains relatively under-studied. We use detailed card level data and a product that accounted for 15% of all first-time formal loans in Mexico and show that default rates are high and ex-ante unpredictable for new borrowers -- suggesting an important role for ex-post contract terms in limiting risk. However, using a large nationwide experiment we find that default is unresponsive to minimum payment increases, a commonly proposed policy remedy. We provide evidence that the zero result is driven by the offsetting effects of tightened liquidity constraints and lower debt burdens. Surprisingly, we also find muted default responses to large experimental changes in interest rates -- suggesting a limited role for ex-post moral hazard in our context. Finally, we use job displacements to document large effects of unemployment on default, highlighting the centrality of idiosyncratic shocks as a barrier to the expansion of formal credit among poorer populations.In the third and last chapter, coauthored with Joshua J. Kim and Aleksandr Shirkhanyan, we study savings in Armenia, particularly focusing on a unique problem that households in the developing world often face: how to safely store their assets when the value of their local currency is unstable. This instability leads to several complicated decisions households must make, such as how much to save and which currencies to save in. These choices are especially important for households during periods of macroeconomic volatility such as currency depreciations. In this paper, we study how households make such savings decisions following a large currency depreciation in Armenia.

Economic Organization, Industrial Dynamics and Development

Economic Organization, Industrial Dynamics and Development PDF Author: Giovanni Dosi
Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing
ISBN: 9781782540151
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
This volume collects some of Giovanni Dosi's most important publications in the new millennium, following his earlier 2000 collection, Innovation, Organization and Economic Dynamics. It begins by offering quite a few advances in the analysis of individual learning in evolving environments, and of organizational structures and learning, thereby contributing to an emerging knowledge-centred theory of the firm and to a related theory of production. A second group of papers addresses the workings of markets, the importance of their institutional architectures, their diverse effectiveness as selection devices, and the evolutionary patterns of demand formation. A third set of chapters continues the exploration of the characteristics, drivers and performance outcomes of industrial evolution. The fourth part of the book is a reassessment of the role of history and path dependence in evolutionary processes. Finally, Part five addresses both the empirics and the modeling of the processes of growth and development nested into coupled evolution of technologies, corporate organizations and institutions.

Essays in Development Economics and Industrial Organisation

Essays in Development Economics and Industrial Organisation PDF Author: Felix Forster
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

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Trade, Development and Political Economy

Trade, Development and Political Economy PDF Author: D. Lal
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 0230523684
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 330

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Book Description
Trade, Development and Political Economy takes fundamental issues in trade and development policy and subjects them to well-based economic analysis in a form that is easily accessible to the non-specialist. Distinguished contributors address some of the following questions: Are critics of outward-orientated development wrong? What caused the financial crisis of East Asia? Who supports trade and aid in the US? And, what are the conditions needed to promote growth? They also look forward to what trade policies and agreements will be needed in the future.

Development Economics and Social Justice

Development Economics and Social Justice PDF Author: John Thoburn
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351160028
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 307

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Book Description
Professor Ian Livingstone is one of a small group of British development economists who have achieved international renown and recognition. The objective of this book is to pay tribute to his life's work, particularly those aspects which related to key but challenging development issues. These issues include, at a broad level, the understanding of the economic forces determining the development of low income economies, more detailed micro work on agricultural development (irrigation in particular), decentralisation and local government finance, small scale enterprises, and large scale manufacturing development. Themes running through his work relate to his over-riding concern for rigour and for socio-economic justice. Ian Livingstone consistently used the traditional tools of economic analysis as a means to increase understanding of development issues - in a way which was, itself, just as radical as the contributions of political scientists and sociologists. This volume has been produced with similar aims.

Essays in Development Economics

Essays in Development Economics PDF Author: Jagdish N. Bhagwati
Publisher: Oxford [Oxfordshire] : B. Blackwell
ISBN: 9780631141785
Category : Developing countries
Languages : en
Pages : 331

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Essays in Development Economics

Essays in Development Economics PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

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Essays in Development Economics

Essays in Development Economics PDF Author: Pakistan Institute of Development Economics
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

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