Job Market Paper
Investment for the demographic window in Latin America
[paper]
Abstract: This paper studies the behavior of investment during demographic transitions. In particular, I focus on the period of time where the working age- to total population-ratio reaches its maximum,i.e., the demographic window. I document that in both the 15 years before the window and during it, investment rates in Europe, Asia, and Oceania are higher than in other periods of time, whereas in Latin America they are lower. To understand the relationship between investment and a demographic window, I build an overlapping generations model with demographic change and variable degree of financial openness. Within this framework, I conduct several exercises and counterfactuals involving potential drivers of the investment behavior. I find that the demographic behavior in conjunction with the region-specific financial openness can explain the main pattern of investment for the demographic window in Latin America vis-a-vis Europe, Asia and Oceania.
Presented at: the research department of the Central Bank of Mexico in August 2015, the 16th Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET) Conference in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in July 2016, and the IDB in December 2016.
[paper]
Abstract: This paper studies the behavior of investment during demographic transitions. In particular, I focus on the period of time where the working age- to total population-ratio reaches its maximum,i.e., the demographic window. I document that in both the 15 years before the window and during it, investment rates in Europe, Asia, and Oceania are higher than in other periods of time, whereas in Latin America they are lower. To understand the relationship between investment and a demographic window, I build an overlapping generations model with demographic change and variable degree of financial openness. Within this framework, I conduct several exercises and counterfactuals involving potential drivers of the investment behavior. I find that the demographic behavior in conjunction with the region-specific financial openness can explain the main pattern of investment for the demographic window in Latin America vis-a-vis Europe, Asia and Oceania.
Presented at: the research department of the Central Bank of Mexico in August 2015, the 16th Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET) Conference in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in July 2016, and the IDB in December 2016.
Work in progress
- North-North Migration and Agglomeration in the European Union, with Daniela Costa.
Abstract: This paper provides evidence on migration within the European Union 15, disaggregated by occupation. Using the European Labor Force Survey from 1983-2013, we find that in high-educated occupartions, EU15 workers move to EU15 countries where their occupation is relatively more abundant among natives. This is at odds with traditional models of migration. We develop a model with external economies of scale that generates an agglomeration force in highly educated labor. Our main result is that workers of high-educated occupations migrate to countries that are abundant in highly educated labor of the same occupation. We argue this type of model is more suitable to analyze migration flows between high income countries with highly educated labor.
Presented at: the XIV Workshop on Dynamic Macroeconomics and the 79th annual meeting of the Midwest Economics Association.