Sistema Regional de Información
en línea para Revistas Científicas de América Latina,
el Caribe, España y Portugal

This article studies and compares two ways of introducing the possibility of internationalreserves accumulation in a model of sovereign debt. I describe in detail the model, the calibration procedure and the results of Samano (2021), a paper that features an independent central bank that accumulates international reserves to offset government debt accumulation. I explain that a change in value of a sole parameter in the model of Samano (2021) allows to obtain an equivalent model to the one found in Alfaro y Kanczuk (2009), a model that constitutes a natural starting point to study reserves accumulation in models of sovereign debt. Quantitatively, I compare the working of both models and explain in detail the mechanism that allows Samano (2021) to rationalize similar levels to the ones observed in real-world data in debt and reserves, unlike Alfaro y Kanczuk (2009). In this paper, I calibrate the model for the Argentinian economy, assuming that the central bank is as patient as the rest of the world. The main result is that the level of reserves that rationalizes the model (21.7 %) is three times higher than the one observed in Argentina from 1993 to 2017. This quantitative model provides a counterfactual of the level of observed reserves in a scenario in which the central bank would be completely isolated from political pressure.

The economic fallout from COVID-19 has widened global imbalances, partially reverting the correction of current account balances (flow imbalances) in the last decade. Similarly, net foreign assets (stock imbalances), that continued to widen, have experienced an additional increase. We analyse in this article the main factors impacting on global imbalances during the pandemic. The uneven recovery supports an additional widening in the short run. Moreover, the pandemic is inducing or accelerating deep changes in the world economy in areas such as economic and financial digitalisation, the organisation of work or, more indirectly, international taxation and the green transition. These structural changes will affect global imbalances in the long run, although its sign and magnitude are still uncertain.

This paper develops a model to study how the exploitation of natural resources affects sovereign risk in emerging economies. The model features investment, production in three sectors, and natural resources. In the presence of a higher stock of natural resources, the government increases investment in order to exploit them and also increases consumption since permanent income is higher. Both investment and consumption are financed with the issuance of external debt. In addition, there is a reallocation of production factors towards non-traded goods, which appreciates the real exchange rate and increases the volatility of tradable income. Both the increase in volatility and the debt level raise the probability of default and the interest ratesthe government pays for its debt. Consumption volatility also increases, which lowers the welfare gains from higher natural resource wealth.

This paper empirically examines the relationship between growth (and recessions) and current account imbalances at the global and country level. The results suggest that global current account imbalances are strongly pro-cyclical, and that the strong positive correlation between global growth and imbalances is not driven exclusively by major growth slowdowns. We also find that past recessions and financial crises, both country-specific and global ones, tend to be preceded by a building up in current account imbalances and followed by a sharp and persistent adjustment. This pattern is in marked contrast with the increase in global imbalances observed during the COVID-19 crisis.

Since 2012 all air routes starting or finishing in the European Economic Area (EEA) are included in the EU Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS). Empirical evidence has shown that this policy instrument reduced emissions by 5% as compared to the counterfactual at the EU level (Fageda and Teixidó, 2022). However, this effect is potentially heterogeneous across countries. Applying a difference-in-difference strategy, here we focus on Spain, a country with high speed rail deployment and with a significant tourism industry. We find that Spanish aviation emissions were 10% lower because of the EU ETS, 16% lower if there was a HSR connection and 17% less when focusing only on tourist destinations. All these reductions in emissions were driven by a reduction in flights.

This paper analyzes the behaviour of the U.S. net external position since the end of the Bretton Woods system and examines alternative paths for future adjustment. We estimate a present value expression that relates the current external imbalance with future expected portfolio return differentials and net exports growth. We find that the return differentials will be the main channel of external adjustment. Half-lives for future adjustments paths towards a balanced position are around 10 years, with these paths having been delayed due to the COVID-19 crisis. The U.S.external adjustment would also involve a significant depreciation of the dollar.

Introduction

This article analyzes the economic, social and environmental impact of various financing mechanisms for the regulated costs of renewable energies in the electricity sector (RECORE) inSpain. The scenarios analysed, alternative to the current system, in which the costs are transferred in full to the electricity bill of final consumers, are the following: financing through the General State Budgets (PGE scenario), financing through a tax proportional to final energy consumption (Energy scenario) and financed through a CO2 tax in diffuse sectors (CO2 scenario). The study uses a computable general equilibrium (CGE) model and a micro simulation model that includes detailed information on the 22,000 households included in the Household Budget Survey. The results show that the impact at the macroeconomic level is positive but very small for all the scenarios analyzed and that the changes at the sectoral level or in emissions depend notably on the scenario. All the scenarios favor low-income households since their spending on electricityrepresents a relatively higher percentage of their income. Although no alternative is better in all the dimensions analyzed, taxes on energy or CO2 favor the energy transition, while the PGE alternative generates more progressive distributional effects.

Management literature supports a relationship between certain human resource management practices and a firm’s environmental strategy. However, the influence of the individual experience of employees has received limited attention. This paper analyzes the effect of employees’ competitive orientation, captured through employees’ experience at high hierarchical levels in their professional careers, on a firm’s environmental progress. We use a proprietary database containing information about the professional careers of 10,564 employees from 94 firms on the S&P100 index. Using multilevel analysis, we find that the sampled firms improve their environmental proactivity if they have more employees with a working experience at high hierarchical levels. We also find that a higher firm’s pay dispersion level will intensify this effect. Although there is a risk that employees’ competitive orientation hinders collaboration, our results support a positive relationship between employees’ internal competition and the firm’s environmental progress.

One key aspect of the ecological transition has to do with individuals’ and collective behavior and its impact on climate change and decarbonization. We will describe how these questions can be studied by proper experimental designs by focusing on two examples: the implementation of Nordhaus's climate club idea for making countries contribute to climate change mitigation, and the interplay between the perception of the risk of a climatic catastrophe and the social norms arising from, and influencing, individual behavior. We will draw conclusions of the outcome of the experiments that can be relevant for policy making.