Gonzalo Edwards

La Productividad Científica de Economía y Administración en Chile: Un Análisis Comparativo

The first part of this paper compares the volume and scientific productivity of Business Administration and Economics in Chile with the rest of scientific disciplines at the national and international levels. Given that scientific productivity is heterogeneous among different disciplines, the comparisons utilize an indicator that measures their impact relative to the world in the same field. The second part of the paper compares the amounts of public resources allocated to research in the different fields and discusses their relative efficiency in Chile.

The current impact factor and the long-term impact of scientific journals by discipline : A logistic diffusion model estimation

SummaryThis paper estimates the long-term impact of journals aggregated in 24 different fields, using a simple logistic diffusion model, and relates the results to the current impact factor. Results show that while the current and the long-term impact factors have a high correlation coefficient, some fields are systematically slower-moving than others, as they often differ in the proportion of the overall impact through time that occurs in the short term.

The effect of a constant or a declining discount rate on optimal investment timing

This paper shows that exponential discounting may have an advancing effect on the timing of investment, not captured by sensitivity analysis carried out for the complete range of instantaneous discount rates implicit in declining discounting.

CLIMATE CHANGE: AN INCONVENIENT MAYBE

The subject of Climate Change is here to stay for at least the rest of the 21st century. The extent to which climate change can be expected; the importance in its determination of anthropogenic factors, relative to natural causes; its impact on world agriculture, migration patterns and economic growth; the costs involved and the best practices to mitigate the consequences, are all still subject to great controversy and remain in the realm of the speculative, in spite of specific matters where a relative consensus has been reached, and despite media efforts to show only the more alarmist view. It is this controversy that gives the name to this essay, which advertently paraphrases former United States Vice-President Al Gore’s movie An Inconvenient Truth.

An Illiquid Market in the Desert: The Role of Interest Groups in Shaping Environmental Regulation

We present a lobby model to explain the adoption and persistence of seemingly costly environmental policies relative to the likely benefits generated. The arguments of the model are illustrated by water trade restrictions for mining firms in the Atacama Desert of northern Chile. The area is one of the driest in the world but also the world’s top copper producer. Due to regulation of access to local water in the region, firms have begun using desalinated water at a cost of up to

An Illiquid Market in the Desert: Estimating the Cost of Water Trade Restrictions in Northern Chile

19,542 per m3/day while agricultural water trades at median price of

Jubilación en los sistemas de pensiones privados

343 per m3/day. We explore how governmental maintenance of environmental and indigenous water supplies through restrictions on water trades causes these large price differentials. We provide a simple framework that explains how this type of policy can be supported under reasonable assumptions about lobbying. Interest group lobbying, limited information to unorganized general citizens about policy costs and benefits, and their associated distribution can lead to strong regulation, even when the protected environmental areas and agricultural populations are small and isolated. Difference- in-difference modeling of sector prices indicates that after an abrupt increase in regulatory denials, prices diverged in a manner consistent with the lobbying model. Using market price and desalination cost data, policy costs are estimated at

La Tasa de Descuento en Proyectos de Largo Plazo

6.15 billion dollars or approximately

La Tasa de Descuento en Proyectos de Inversión de Largo Plazo

350 per citizen, which may or may not equate to perceived general benefits.Institutional subscribers to the NBER working paper series, and residents of developing countries may download this paper without additional charge at www.nber.org.

The Effect of Regulation Uncertainty on Water-Right Prices: The Case of the Loa Basin in the Antofagasta Region of Chile

This paper estimates the cost of a policy to restrict water trades to mining firms in northern Chile to protect riparian ecosystems and indigenous agriculture. In response to the policy, mining firms have developed high-cost desalination and pumping facilities to secure adequate water supplies. We develop a methodology and estimate the cost of market transactions that fail to occur due to the policy. Lost trade surplus is estimated at