Luis Felipe Zegarra

Measuring regional competitiveness through Data Envelopment Analysis: A Peruvian case

Abstract It is well known that competitiveness has a positive effect on long-term economic growth. Concerned, thus, with creating and maintaining an environment that sustains more value creation for its enterprises and more prosperity for its people, the goal of this research paper is to assist the Peruvian national and regional policy makers, business, and academic community in their endeavor to improve regional and national competitiveness by means of developing a methodology based on Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) to measure and rank the competitiveness of all the regions of Peru. It is important to highlight that DEA is a method that has never been used before in the calculation of regional competitiveness and this research paper is the first of its kind in Peru to adapt this method to develop a regional competitiveness index. Results revealed that coastal regions are highly competitive when compared to the mountains and jungle regions. Because of the large differences in the competitiveness of the regions of Peru, the research results point out to the need for a unified approach in creating a development strategy and improving the competitiveness of all the regions of Peru.

PRIVATE LENDERS, BANKS AND MORTGAGE CREDIT IN PERU. EVIDENCE FROM NOTARISED LOANS

This article examines the mortgage credit market of Peru during the guano era and analyses the effects of the creation of mortgage banks on the allocation of credit. It shows that mortgage banks served as interregional intermediaries and facilitated access to long-term credit for large estate owners. However, banks did not broaden access to credit. As private lenders, mortgage banks loaned largely to Lima’s merchants and renters and to hacendados from the main coastal valleys.

Predictability of Competing Measures of Core Inflation: An Application for Peru

A central element of an inflation targeting approach to monetary policy is a proper measure of inflation. The international evidence suggests the use of core inflation measures. In this paper we claim that core inflation should be measured as the underlying trend of inflation that comes from nominal shocks that have no real effect in the long term. However, most of the time core inflation is computed zero weighting observations at the tail of the inflation distribution. Quah and Vahey (1996) proposed a method of computing core inflation imposing theory restrictions to a SVAR specification. In this paper we present estimation for Peruvian data and compare the predictability properties of competing measures of inflation following an idea of Diebold and Killian (1997).

Measuring Core Inflation in a Small, Open and Dollarized Economy: The Peruvian Case

In the last years four Latin American countries (Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Peru) have switched to inflation targeting as the main mechanism to guide their monetary policies. In this paper we address some of the basic questions regarding its implementation: (i) which inflation measure should use: core vs headline; (ii) how forecastable are these measures of inflation; and (iii) how effective is the monetary policy to control its behavior. The paper follows the steps of Bryan and Cecchetti (1993). However, all these questions have specific qualifications in a small, open and dollarized economy in which the ability of the Central Bank might be eroded by currency substitution problems. We found that the Peruvian Central Bank should target the CPI inflation but conduct its monetary policy forecasting a core inflation measure in a 12-month horizon as the currency substitution problem does not seem to impose a severe restriction as previously analyzed in Moron (1997).

Exports and Their Impact on the Economy. The Case of Peru, 1830–1930

This chapter analyzes the evolution of exports of Peru between 1830 and 1930. In particular, it describes the boom of guano, the significant drop of exports during the War of the Pacific (1879–1883) and the posterior recovery, especially during World War I and the boom of the 1920s. In addition, the chapter analyzes several indicators in order to determine the direct and indirect impact of the export sector on the growth of the Peruvian economy.