CEMFI

About: CEMFI is a based out in . It is known for research contribution in the topics: Unemployment & Estimator. The organization has 71 authors who have published 499 publications receiving 46553 citations. The organization is also known as: Center for Monetary and Financial Studies.

Monitoring, Liquidation, and Security Design

Abstract: By identifying the possibility of imposing a credible threat of liquidation as the key role of informed (bank) finance in a moral hazard context, we characterize the circumstances under which a mixture of informed and uninformed (market) finance is optimal, and explain why bank debt is typically secured, senior, and tightly held. We also show that the effectiveness of mixed finance may be impaired by the possibility of collusion between the firms and their informed lenders, and that in the optimal renegotiation-proof contract informed debt capacity will be exhausted before appealing to supplementary uninformed finance. Article published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society for Financial Studies in its journal, The Review of Financial Studies.

Low Returns in R&D Due to the Lack of Entrepreneurial Skills*

Abstract: This paper proposes a model of endogenous growth where innovating requires both researchers, who produce inventions, and entrepreneurs who implement them. As research and entrepreneurship compete in the allocation of aggregate resources, the relation between growth and research effort is hump-shaped. When entrepreneurs appropriate too little rents from innovation, too few resources are allocated to entrepreneurship and returns to R&D are low because of this lack of entrepreneurial skills. When so, innovation should be promoted by encouraging entrepreneurship rather than research.

Analytic derivatives and the computation of GARCH estimates

Abstract: In the context of univariate GARCH models we show how analytic first and second derivatives of the log-likelihood can be successfully employed for estimation purposes. Maximum likelihood GARCH estimation usually relies on the numerical approximation to the log-likelihood derivatives, on the grounds that an exact analytic differentiation is much too burdensome. We argue that this is not the case and that the computational benefit of using the analytic derivatives (first and second) may be substantial. Furthermore, we make a comparison of various gradient algorithms that are used for the maximization of the GARCH Gaussian likelihood. We suggest the implementation of a globally efficient computation algorithm that is obtained by suitably combining the use of the estimated information matrix with that of the exact Hessian during the maximization process. As this would appear a straightforward extension, we then study the finite sample performance of the exact Hessian and its approximations (that is, the estimated information, outer products and misspecification robust matrices) in inference.

The Cycle of Earnings Inequality: Evidence from Spanish Social Security Data

Abstract: We use detailed information on labor earnings and employment from Social Security records to document earnings inequality in Spain from 1988 to 2010. Male earnings inequality was strongly countercyclical: it increased around the 1993 recession, showed a substantial decrease during the 1997-2007 expansion and then a sharp increase during the recent recession. These developments were partly driven by the cyclicality of employment and earnings in the lower-middle part of the distribution. We emphasize the importance of the housing boom and subsequent housing bust, and show that demand shocks in the construction sector significantly impacted aggregate labor market outcomes.

Unemployment and Consumption Near and Far Away from the Mediterranean

Abstract: We study the insurance mechanisms employed by households to absorb unemployment shocks using comparable data for four countries: Italy, Spain, Great Britain, and the US Results on family transfers when the male household head becomes unemployed suggest that family networks are the weakest in Britain, while unemployment benefits there are instead the most generous across the four countries Despite these differences, food consumption losses induced by unemployment of the male household head are similar across countries These findings are consistent with the view that family support and the Welfare State substitute each other in mitigating the consequences of unemployment shocks