This paper studies the effects of contracting institutions on economic development. A growth model is presented with endogenous incomplete markets, where financial frictions generated by the imperfect enforcement of contracts depend on the future growth of the economy, which determines the costs...

This paper proposes a specific mechanism to explain differences in political institutions based on the asymmetric and uncertain costs of civil conflicts. Asymmetry implies that the net benefit of fighting an insurgency is not shared equally by members of the elite. But uncertainty implies that...

This paper documents that differences in the early development of institutions in Latin America that led to the consolidation of oligarchic republics in the first decades of the twentieth century, explain the subsequent economic performance in the region. It develops a model with the aim of...

We investigate the impact of corporate taxation on capital stock. In the paper, we indicate that corporate taxation might not only distort the decision of each firm to invest but could also destroy firms. With this in mind, we estimate capital demand equations, correcting for self-selection in...

This paper analyzes the recent evolution and the actual level of international reserves in Chile using complementary approaches. First, we compare the current level of international reserves of Chile with other countries, using as controls a set of indicators that are traditionally used in the...

In the last ten years the Chilean mutual fund industry has multiplied its assets around fivefold. In particular, money market funds have become important players in the financial sector as investors in time deposits as well as intermediating funds of the corporate sector. Given the importance of...

We analyze the IMF as a lender to countries in financial distress, highlighting the fact that it is a senior creditor. One advantage of delegating senior lending to a single institution rather than to competitive markets is that the former would be able to reach the socially optimal solution....

We study empirically if countries that default on their debt experience a reduction in their capital inflows as suggested by the literature. Our data contains information on (i) the defaulter countries and their creditors and (ii) bilateral foreign direct investment (FDI) flows. With this we can...

We study steady state optimal taxation in a context where firms differ in productivity and they decide whether to produce or not after comparing after-tax profits vis-à-vis an outside alternative option. The government taxes capital income, firms’ profits and labor income, but does not tax...