In Western economies, the concrete design of fiscal federalism is determined by the status the federation grants to regionally comparable economic and social conditions, and to what extent this status is anchored in the constitution. If the political and social acceptance of regional differences...

This paper surveys alternative approaches to the emergence and evolution of institutions. The challenge is to develop frameworks capable of capturing both stability and change. We follow a “descaling” approach to show how founding assumptions about economics—namely, alternative assumptions...

The paper addresses the issue of rethinking the welfare state as a part of a broader national system of social protection (NSSP) and a mode of societal regulation. In order to overcome the theoretical limits of bottom-up comparative analysis of welfare states, one builds a structural model of...

This paper investigates the causal impact of displacement on health outcomes for Colombian children of different age cohorts. It uses the Colombian Demographic and Health Survey 2010, which provides both a number of health outcomes and information about displacement of households. Two different...

Focusing on core-infrastructure capital vis-à-vis productive capital, we propose a macroeconomic method to determine both which type of capital shortage would be constraining potential output and what would be the optimal composition, or optimal ratio between these two types, of capital in any...

We propose a method to estimate both whether there is an overall infrastructure shortage and the optimal share of infrastructure in gross fixed capital formation (GFCF). This is based on a two-gap model and linear programming, and is illustrated with the case of Mexico (1950-1985). The results...

This dissertation consists of three empirical studies on the regional economic adjustments that followed NAFTA’s entry into force in Mexico. In the first study, the evolution and determinants of regional disparities in manufacturing labor productivity are analyzed for the 1988-2003 period. The...

This paper studies the reasons behind the export performance of different Mexican states from 1994 to 2002. Mexican exports are divided into two components: (1) foreign market potential; and (2) supply capacity. Results suggest that states that experience an increase in supply capacity are, in...

Since the beginning of the twentieth century, the education system in Peru has known a considerable development. This suggests that in all probabilities opportunities for study should be on a more equal basis. In the present article, I set out to discover whether all social groups have really...