In this paper the neoclassical convergence hypothesis is tested for the thirteen regions of Chile using crosssection and time-series techniques. Cross-section analysis in combination with a Bayesian Modeling Averaging strategy supports the convergence hypothesis, despite of some instability...

In this paper we define a family of tests for the Martingale Difference Hypothesis (MDH) based upon a shrinkage principle. Tests within this family are such that rejection of the null implies that forecasts from the alternative model, adjusted by a shrinkage factor, will display lower Mean...

In this paper we evaluate exchange rate predictability using a new framework developed by Giacomini and White (2004). In this new framework we test for conditional predictive ability rather than for unconditional predictive ability, which has been the usual approach thus far. Using several...

We evaluate inflation forecasts from the Survey of Professional Forecasters (SPF) of the Central Bank of Chile. Forecast errors for the period 2000-2008 show an excess of autocorrelation and a statistically significant bias at the end of the sample. We take advantage of the autocorrelation...

In this paper we build forecasts for Chilean year-on-year inflation using simple time-series models augmented with different measures of international inflation. Broadly speaking, we construct two families of international inflation factors. The first family is built using year-on-year inflation...

In this paper we explore the role that exchange rate interventions may play in determining inflation expectations in Chile. To that end, we consider a set of nine deciles of inflation expectations coming from the survey of professional forecasters carried out by the Central Bank of Chile. We...

We show that a straightforward modification of a trading based test for predictability displays interesting advantages over the Excess Profitability (EP) test proposed by Anatolyev and Gerco when testing the Martingale Difference Hypothesis. Our statistic is called Straightforward Excess...

In this paper we analyze the contribution of international measures of inflation to predict local ones. To that end, we consider the set of current thirty one OECD economies for which inflation data is available at a monthly frequency. By considering this set of countries, a span of time...

In this paper we examine the ability that entrepreneurial sentiment indicators may have to predict year-on-year aggregate and sectoral employment in Chile. When focusing only on the predictive relationship between sentiment indicators and y-o-y employment, putting aside the autocorrelation...

In this paper we analyze the Chilean Consumer Price Index (CPI) with respect to ten price indexes representing the average price faced by ten different income groups. We construct these indexes using information from two versions of the Household Expenditure Survey: that obtained for the period...