This paper analyzes the role of the sharply increases in the minimum wage after 2004 in Uruguay in the slight decrease on wage inequality. We Önd no impact of the miminum wage increases on wage inequality. This results can be explained by the low starting level of the minimum wage or lack of...

Analizamos las calificaciones de deuda soberana a partir de modelos logit para una muestra de 53 países entre 2000 y 2010. Dado que la literatura sobre el tema omite un tratamiento diferencial para variables explicativas no estacionarias incorporamos un factor de tendencia que interactúa con...

There is an increasing literature that discusses how to measure the middle class. Some approaches are based on an arbitrary deÖnition such as income quartiles or the poverty line. Recently, Foster and Wolfson developed a methodology which lacks of arbitrariness that enables us to compare the...

General Equilibrium Theory (GE) scrutinizes the ability of markets to achieve efficient allocation of resources. The main purpose of this work is, in the framework to the GE to analyze, the possibility of design a mechanism enabling agents to make independent decisions compatible with social...

In the case of natural monopolies there tends to be a trade-off between a higher quality of output provided by private firms, and a better access for poor consumers provided by public firms. This is partly the reflection of differences in objectives by private and public firms. The former tend...

This paper summarizes the main findings in a series of coordinated studies conducted to assess the impact of social security programs on the distribution of lifetime labor income in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Mexico and Uruguay. The country-case studies find varying degrees of redistribution,...

We assess redistribution in the Uruguayan main pension and unemployment insurance programs on a lifetime basis. Using administrative records from social security, we simulate lifetime declared labor income and flows of contributions and benefits of affiliates to the programs. Expected present...

International electricity spot trade between two countries is modeled as a sequence of bargaining games, one for each trade opportunity. Each game has a benefit per time unit and random duration. There is a correspondence between this trade game and the bargaining game for the partition of a pie...

In this paper we estimate a structural model for retirement behavior using data on labor history of public employees in Uruguay. We use a modied version of the model proposed by Jimenez-Martin and Sánchez-Martin (2007) adjusted to the uruguayan case. The estimated coeffcient of relative risk...

In a paper on pension plans in eleven Latin American countries, Forteza and Ourens (2011) report two remarkable results: the rates of return are not sensitive to retirement ages if the number of years of service remains constant, and there are large discontinuities in the rates of return...