Hay procesos inexorables. Uno de ellos, ya casi consumado, fue la eventual transformación del planeta en una sola unidad debido a la acumulación de tecnologías de transporte, comunicación y armas de destrucción masiva. Aunque el triunfo del capitalismo nada tuviera de inevitable, esta globalización material  bajo uno u otro signo ideológico sí lo era.

This paper attempts to understand the factors that explain the degree of support or criticism that a reform process may be subject to.  Understanding these determinants is critical, in turn, to assess the feasibility and sustainability of those reforms.  In particular, we want to assess what are the elements that create societal consensus for reform and which are the main factors that turn public opinion against it.

This paper presents a version of the proportionally calibrated almost ideal demand system (PCAIDS) model, useful for merger simulations, which can be econometrically estimated using price data for two firms in a market. The model is then applied to a database of the Argentine gasoline market, and its results are compared to the ones obtained with other alternative specifications.

Argentina has more than twice the total debt of India whilst the latter has twenty-eight times more population in roughly equivalent territories. It was once a prosperous haven for poor Europeans, with one of the highest per capita incomes in the world, but now half its population is underneath the poverty line. It has perpetrated the greatest default in world economic history, yet if the foreign assets of its private individuals are included in the national accounts, the country is still a net creditor.

Si todas las culturas son moralmente equivalentes, entonces todos los individuos no estamos dotados de los mismos derechos humanos, porque hay culturas que adjudican a algunos hombres más derechos que a otros hombres y mujeres. Si por el contrario todos los individuos poseemos los mismos derechos, entonces todas las culturas no son moralmente equivalentes, porque hay culturas que no reconocen, ni siquiera en principio, la vigencia de esos derechos universales. Las dos afirmaciones son contradictorias y no pueden ser ambas verdaderas.

El surgimiento del peronismo presentó a los marxistas argentinos un dilema teórico: la clase obrera, para ellos el sujeto de la historia, rechazaba al partido de clase para seguir a un líder exógeno. No era éste el primer problema teórico que debían resolver, ya que en la conferencia de partidos comunistas latinoamericanos realizada en Buenos Aires en 1929, habían debido enfrentar las posiciones de José Carlos Mariátegui referidas a la cuestión indígena y al papel del imperialismo en América Latina.

Liberty and good government do not exclude each other; and there are excellent reasons why they should go together. Liberty is not a mean to a higher political end. It is itself the highest political end.   Lord Acton Liberty is meaningless if it is only the liberty to agree with those in power. Von Mises

Este trabajo efectúa un análisis de la forma en que los partidos de oposición actúan en las elecciones presidenciales, buscando darles un rol activo. Para ello se construye un modelo con dos niveles de gobierno, uno Nacional y el otro provincial o estadual.

This is the last of a series of three working papers analyzing the basic characteristics of the economic environment in which Latin American firms operate and the optimal design of incentive programs compatible with such environment.  Executive pay-for-performance compensation schemes are usually based on stock returns.  However, stock returns change in response to forces beyond management control (e.g., market crushes). The economic environment in which Latin American firms operate is highly unstable, which means that this is a very important limitation for Latin American firms.

This paper seeks to expand on two topical strands in Government Finance and Political Science literature, rent-seeking and the soft-budget constraint, so as to bring forth a strong linkage with corporate governance environments. It will attempt to accomplish this task by setting up a distinctive framework of analysis that hinges on incremental cash flows. Firstly, it claims that both rent-seeking behavior and the soft-budget constraint are worthy of being applied to corporate governance learning and practice.