(Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú. Fondo Editorial, 2004) Figueroa, Adolfo
This study aims at understanding the behavior of economic elites in the Third World.Because economic elites concentrate the property of physical capital in society, theiractions influence the living conditions of the masses. The literature on the elite's behavioris, however, very limited. This study is an attempt to take some steps to fill this gap.The behavior that is emphasized is the investment in social capital. A theory of socialnetworks is thus proposed. A prediction of the theory is that the accumulation of socialcapital depends on the same set of factors that explain the accumulation of physicalcapital. Therefore, the economic elites do not circulate endogenously. The case of Peruis examined in the light of this theory. The results show consistency with the predictionsof the theory. The conclusion of this study is not in accord with the usual optimism laiddown on social capital as the instrument for economic development of the masses.
(Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú. Fondo Editorial, 2004) Iguíñiz Echeverria, Javier María
Several producers' associations and groups of civil society in Latin America are involvedin campaigning against the signature of some components or of the whole FreeTrade Area of the Americas (FTAA). In this analysis of the agents and strategies involvedwe sustain that the participation in the negotiations is a necessary condition for thematuring of a South American alternative to the FTAA. Both, adors and strategies arebuilt or strengthened in the process of negotiation.
(Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú. Fondo Editorial, 2004) Kapsoli Salinas, Javier; Bencich Aguilar, Brigitt
This paper shows a procedure to constmct a short run predictor for the GDP. We use theBaxter & King filter to decompose the monthly GDP on its three components: seasonal, business cycle and iong-run trend. Furthermore we estimate and forecast the businesscycle using a set of leading economic variables. We propose that the complicated relationshipsamong this variables and the business cycle are well captured by a non linearartificial neural network model. The other components are estimated using standardeconometric techniques. Finally, the three components are added to obtain an indicatorfor the future behavior of the GDP. The prediction shows an aceptable leve1 of reliability,so the index can be used to take decisions in the private or public sector. The mainadvantage of the index is its faster availability relative to the oficial statistics.
(Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú. Fondo Editorial, 2004) Camargo, Gonzalo; Camargo, Mayko
In this paper we have suggested a new methodology to estimate the probability of defaultof a country as a function of other macroeconomics variables. Such methodologyis based in the valuation of the prices in the secondary market of bonds issued by debtorcountries. We have chosen the Brady bonds because their institutional characteristicsdo not depend on the issuer country, which allows us to build a homogeneouspanel. The methodology proposed takes elements of traditional models such as thefunctional structure of the probability and elernents of term structure models. The paperdemonstrates a new way to extract sovereign nsk, implicit in trade bond prices.
(Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú. Fondo Editorial, 2004) Perla, Cecilia
Economies that have large endowments of natural resources, especially the ones thatrely on oil and minerals, are ofien regarded as unlikely to develop, or even seen as cursedby nature. It is said that the mineral rents, which could be used to trigger a growthprocess, have in practice several negative effects that by and large counteract their potentialpositive contributions. Nevertheless, it seems that these results are sensitive tothe measures of resource abundance that are used, and mineral resource abundancemight not be necessarily growth retarding. This study will evaluate if the arguments touphold that mineral rich countries are dwmed to low economic growth are strong andsound by testing a number of robustness checks on the standard models of resourcesand growth. We test if there are any specification bias in the model proposed i n pa rticularof omitted variables- and if the resource curse thesis remains robust whenusing other measures of resource abundance, and when testing specifically for a mineralrecOurce curse.
(Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú. Fondo Editorial, 2004) Aguilar Andía, Giovanna; Camargo, Gonzalo
The main purpose of this paper is to evaluate empirically the economic relation betweenLima and some departments of the country by estirnating the effect of shocks affectingLima's growth over the rates of growth of the remaining departments. We do notpretend to describe the mechanisms of transmission but to identificate the negative andpositive effects of shocks coming from Lima, considered 'Yhe center", over the rest of departments,considered "the periphery". It will be used the Autorregresive Vector Model inits Moving Average representation (VMA), in which the endogenous variables are Lima'srate of growth, the rate of growth and the rate of inflation of a periphery department. It isassumed that these variables are affected by shocks of demand and supply originated inthe center and the periphery. In order to ortogonalize the estimated error variance-covariancematrix we will use the Blanchard and Quah decomposition, in which innovations oraggregate demand shocks have no effect over the product on the long run.
