This paper studies empirically the relation between household economic saving (including durable good purchases) and the business cycle using Chilean data. The data show that the relation between household saving and the business cycle is given by the durable consumption dynamics.Consequently, a...

Economic growth in Chile since the mid 1980s has been remarkable for its high level and persistence. This paper attempts to shed light on the factors behind it and analyze the extent to which they can be sustained in the future. The first part of the paper presents some stylized facts. Taken...

The objectives of this paper are, first, to describe the developments in Chilean financial markets at the macroeconomic level and, then, to examine their effects at the level of firms. After reviewing the main government policies towards financial markets in the last three decades, the paper...

Saving behavior at a micro level in Chile has not been analyzed in recent decades. Based on 1988 and 1996-7 Chilean microeconomic evidence (Household Budget Survey), we present an analysis of household’s saving behavior. The analysis is extended to include broader definitions of saving such as...

This paper highlights the evolution of official international reserves in developed countries that transited towards Inflation Targeting (IT) and/or floating exchange rates. We find several results that are of interest to policymakers in emerging countries, such as Brazil, Chile and Mexico,...

The evolution of the skill premium (i.e., the wage differential between skilled and unskilled workers) in an economy has interest from at least two perspectives: the evolution of the skill premium is a rough measure of inequality among workers of different qualifications and provides information...

This paper presents a methodology to build series of purchases, consumption, and stocks of durable goods for the Chilean economy in the 1981-1999 period. The estimated series -both nominal and real- are presented in quarterly and annual frequencies. In addition, the paper explores the...

This paper develops a multivariate analysis in order to study the determinants of the household saving rate. For this purpose, the paper uses two microeconomic databases for 1988 and 1996-1997. The main results of the paper support the conventional explanations of saving rates: more than 60% of...