We develop a new method for estimating the effective reproduction number of an infectious disease (R) and apply it to track the dynamics of COVID-19. The method is based on the fact that in the SIR model, R is linearly related to the growth rate of the number of infected individuals. This...

A large literature has documented that fiscal policy is procyclical in emerging markets and developing economies and acyclical/countercyclical in advanced economies. This paper analyzes fiscal procyclicality in commodity-exporting countries. It first shows that the degree of fiscal...

What explains the surge and plunge commodity markets have undergone in the past 20 years? Are speculators to be blamed? Do prices reflect full information? These are the main questions addressed in this paper, in the context of the corn market. This paper formulates and calibrates two...

A large literature has documented that fiscal policy is procyclical in emerging markets and developing economies and acyclical/countercyclical in advanced economies. This paper analyzes fiscal procyclicality in commodity-exporting countries. It first shows that the degree of fiscal...

Introduction: Policymakers and researchers describe the COVID-19 epidemics by waves without a common vocabulary on what constitutes an epidemic wave, either in terms of a working definition or operationalization, causing inconsistencies and confusions. A working definition and operationalization...

In this paper, we estimate a semi-structural model with a banking sector for the Chilean economy. Our innovation consists of incorporating a system of equations that reflects the dynamics of credit, interest rate spreads, and loan-loss provisions to the Central Bank of Chile's semi-structural...