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on Central and South America |
| By: | OECD |
| Abstract: | Interim measures are enforcement tools available to competition authorities to prevent harm to competition that may occur before a final decision on the existence of an infringement. Most often these decisions are related to an ongoing business practice that may potentially constitute an abuse of dominance infringement, when a dominant market player illegally engages in practices limiting competition. In Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) countries, most competition authorities dispose of interim measures in their legal frameworks and many have used them in past years (e.g. Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Dominican Republic, Paraguay and Peru). This paper provides an overview of the state of play of interim measures in the region covering legal frameworks, recent enforcement experiences, as well as challenges and particularities of LAC countries. The paper highlights that interim measures represent a powerful tool for competition authorities and should be carefully used to mitigate enforcement errors and related reputation risks. |
| Date: | 2024–09–19 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:oec:dafaac:312-en |
| By: | Bargain, Olivier; Jara, H. Xavier; Rivera, David |
| Abstract: | To finance increased public spending and social programs, Latin America's tax systems need to develop further. Yet taxation can reduce the tax base by discouraging formal employment. Evidence on the intensity of the problem is limited and tends to focus on specifically large reforms of the tax system. Conversely, and to improve external validity, we study whether routine changes in tax policies also alter labor market formalization. Our approach is based on grouped-data estimations of formal employment responses to policy changes. We exploit tax variation across three countries (Bolivia, Ecuador and Colombia) and three periods (2008, 2014/15, 2019). We use precise calculations of counterfactual tax burdens when moving from informal to formal jobs, i.e. formalization tax rates (FTRs). For most countries and pairs of years, FTRs have a negative and significant effect on formal employment, particularly when wages are held constant across periods – in order to extract the pure policy effect – and in a series of sensitivity checks. |
| Keywords: | taxation; benefits; labor supply; informality |
| JEL: | H24 H31 J24 J40 |
| Date: | 2024–09–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:125368 |
| By: | Giraldo, Carlos (Latin American Reserve Fund); Giraldo, Iader (Latin American Reserve Fund); Huertas, Cristian (Universidad Nacional de Colombia); Sánchez, Juan Camilo (Dirección de impuestos y aduanas nacionales) |
| Abstract: | This study investigates the determinants of hedging practices among commodity-producing companies in Latin America. The extractive sector's significant economic importance in the region makes understanding these firms' hedging decisions highly relevant. The findings reveal several key insights. Firm size, leverage, and commodity prices are important factors consistent with prior research. Additionally, the region's exchange rate exposure means that firms' acquisition of US dollar-denominated debt is a significant determinant of their hedging activities, as well as the firms’ access to the international markets. Notably, the type of ownership also significantly impacts hedging, as state-owned firms are more likely to hedge to reduce volatility in their revenues for the case of oil-firms. In contrast to the limited research on Latin American extractive firms, an extensive literature has explored hedging strategies in developed countries' extractive companies. This study aims to address the gap by investigating the determinants of hedging practices among commodity-producing companies in Latin America. |
| Keywords: | hedging; risk management; derivatives; commodity-producing companies; |
| JEL: | C23 D81 G30 G32 Q02 |
| Date: | 2024–09–15 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:col:000566:021196 |
| By: | Busso, Matias (Inter-American Development Bank); Montaño, Sebastián (University of Maryland); Muñoz-Morales, Juan S. (IÉSEG School of Management); Pope, Nolan G. (University of Maryland) |
| Abstract: | Teacher quality is a key factor in improving student academic achievement. As such, educational policymakers strive to design systems to hire the most effective teachers. This paper examines the effects of a national policy reform in Colombia that established a merit-based teacher-hiring system intended to enhance teacher quality and improve student learning. Implemented in 2005 for all public schools, the policy ties teacher-hiring decisions to candidates' performance on an exam evaluating subject-specific knowledge and teaching aptitude. The implementation of the policy led to many experienced contract teachers being replaced by high exam-performing novice teachers. We find that though the policy sharply increased pre-college test scores of teachers, it also decreased the overall stock of teacher experience and led to sharp decreases in students' exam performance and educational attainment. Using a difference-in-differences strategy to compare the outcomes of students from public and private schools over two decades, we show that the hiring reform decreased students' performance on high school exit exams by 8 percent of a standard deviation, and reduced the likelihood that students enroll in and graduate from college by more than 10 percent. The results underscore that relying exclusively on specific ex ante measures of teacher quality to screen candidates, particularly at the expense of teacher experience, may unintentionally reduce students' learning gains. |
| Keywords: | teachers, teaching experience, teacher screening, Colombia, test scores, college enrollment |
| JEL: | I25 I28 J24 |
| Date: | 2024–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp17294 |
| By: | Ramos Rodríguez, Pablo David (Universidad de los Andes); Mejía, Daniel (Universidad de los Andes) |
| Abstract: | Este estudio analiza la variación en la luminosidad nocturna capturada con imágenes satelitales con el objetivo de estimar las condiciones que explican el efecto de la iluminación en espacios públicos sobre la indicencia del crimen. Para esto, se estima un modelo panel mensual de efectos fijos con grillas de 463 metros cuadrados de las 6 principales ciudades de Colombia entre 2014 y 2018. Ante aumentos de una desviación estándar en el histórico de luminosidad para cada grilla, se encuentra un aumento en los delitos contra la vida (+3, 2% a +9, 6 %) en lugares exteriores por aumento en las oportunidades de cometer crimen por mayor actividad económica y social; así como una disuasión de los delitos contra la propiedad (-1, 9% a -4, 4 %) y contra la vida (-3, 3% a -4, 5 %) en lugares interiores por mayores posibilidades de ocupación legal en vez de criminal. Aunque no predomina, hay evidencia que sugiere que el mecanismo de disuasión por vigilancia natural opera y atenúa el efecto del mecanismo de oportunidades de crimen. |
| Keywords: | Luminosidad nocturna; crimen urbano; imágenes satelitales. |
| JEL: | D91 I38 K14 |
| Date: | 2024–09–17 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:col:000089:021194 |