Browsing by Author "Paredes, Ricardo D."

Now showing 1 - 13 of 13
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    A MECHANISM FOR EFFICIENT AND FAIR NIMBY LOCATION
    (UNIV NAC COLOMBIA, FAC NAC MINAS, 2009) Crespo, Fernando A.; Paredes, Ricardo D.
    Whilst NIMBY (Not In My BackYard) are facilities necessary to society, are rejected for communities that host them. Thus, in contexts where bad compensation mechanisms exist, communities do not reveal the cost of hosting and social evaluation is severely limited. That explains why NIMBYs are finally located in base of corporate pressures, without technical criteria and with bias against the poorest localities. We propose decentralized mechanism to locate a NIMBY that I efficient (the NIMBY goes to the lowest cost location), and fair (all communities, including the host, are not worse off). The mechanism has balanced budget, and it fulfill the conditions of individual rationality.
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    Chile: academic performance and educational management under a rigid employment regime
    (COMISION ECONOMICA PARA AMERICA LATINA Y EL CARIBE, 2009) Paredes, Ricardo D.; Paredes, Valentina
    Working with census information on standardized academic performance tests and using different estimation techniques, this article analyses sociodemographic and management factors affecting the performance of Chile's municipal schools. The evidence suggests that the system's lack of flexibility, particularly where teacher dismissal is concerned, is an important factor but not the main cause of poor academic performance. Conversely, the differences in academic performance between municipal schools that can be attributed to management are almost twice the standard deviation of the System for Measuring the Quality of Education (SIMCE) performance test and 20 times the increment ascribed to the "complete school day" initiative, which costs the equivalent of half a point of gross domestic product (GDP).
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    Classroom discipline, classroom environment and student performance in Chile
    (COMISION ECONOMICA PARA AMERICA LATINA Y EL CARIBE, 2015) Gazmuri, Carolina; Manzi, Jorge; Paredes, Ricardo D.
    This paper assesses the extent to which teachers' actions in the classroom influence the school environment. The assessment is based on a statistical analysis of videotaped classroom observations of 51,329 teachers. The classroom environment was found to have a significant influence on students' performance. More specifically, the teacher's ability to handle the class as a group is consistently more significant than other measures of class environment. It was also founds that the overall school environment is a better predictor of students' test results than the environment in the classrooms of the students whose test results are being reported. This suggests that the most effective course of action would be to improve the overall school environment, although individual teachers have less control over this factor.
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    Competition Pressures and Academic Performance in Chile
    (2016) Chumacero, Romulo A.; Gallegos Mardones, Juan; Paredes, Ricardo D.
    The positive impact that competition has on performance in most industries has been questioned in the education sector: The difficulty to measure competition, the idea that parents don't rationally choose schools for their children, and that schools do not react to that choice is in the center of the debate. We critically analyze the prevailing methodology in the literature that relates competition and educational performance, and the data used to estimate that impact. We propose a methodology that considers relevant substitutes for each school using various attributes which parents consider when choosing schools, and we apply it to estimate the effect of competition on educational performance in Chile, were more than 90% of the students are covered by a voucher. The evidence supports the hypothesis that competition has a positive, statistically significant, and economically relevant educational impact on private and public schools.
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    DEMOGRAPHIC CHANGES AND SALARY STRUCTURE
    (FONDO CULTURA ECONOMICA, 2010) Espinoza, Ricardo A.; Paredes, Ricardo D.
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    I would walk 500 miles (if it paid): Vouchers and school choice in Chile
    (PERGAMON-ELSEVIER SCIENCE LTD, 2011) Chumacero, Romulo A.; Gomez, Daniel; Paredes, Ricardo D.
    One of the pillars of the educational voucher system is that competition among schools to attract students would improve the quality of the education. Surveys to parents and previous work suggested that families rank the distance of the school from their home as the most important factor for choosing a school. They also suggest that parents largely ignore the results of standardized tests. We use a novel data-set which includes precise measures of the distance between homes and schools to analyze the determinants of school choice in Chile. Economic theory suggests, and the estimations confirm, that parents consider quality and the location when choosing schools. The paper quantifies the relevant trade-offs. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
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    Judicial versus Private Auctions: Better without Protection?
    (2014) Paredes, Ricardo D.; Crisosto K, Andres; Marti C, Philippe
    Using a sample of 680 and 1,300 judicial and private auctions respectively, we analyze the effect on the wealth of those the law is intended to protect of different regulations applicable to each type of auctions. We find that consistent with a simple economic model, Courts assign judicial auctions in a discretional manner; and that the assigned auctioneers charge fees which are substantially higher than those allowed by law. While this behavior put the intended protection to debtor and creditor at risk, economic theory does not rule out a welfare enhancing effect. We test the hypothesis that the judicial auctions' design reduces the welfare of those intended to protect and, consistent with the predictions of our model, we find it is more likely for Courts to appoint the less effective auctioneers and that the net price received by creditors and debtors in judicial auctions is about 18% to 33% below those that could be obtained in private auctions.
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    Reducing the Educational Gap: Good Results in Vulnerable Groups
    (ROUTLEDGE JOURNALS, TAYLOR & FRANCIS LTD, 2010) Garcia Palomer, Cristian; Paredes, Ricardo D.
    We analyse the educational performance of a group of schools that serve socially vulnerable children and that have implemented distinguishable teaching and management methods. Conditioned to students, school characteristics, selection criteria and resources, robust performance measures show statistically significant economically relevant differences in favour of these schools. Whilst only a small part of this difference can be explained with simple management practices that we isolate statistically, there remain an important residual we can associate with distinctive practices identified in the qualitative literature as present in successful schools.
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    School choice and information
    (UNIV CHILE DEPT ECONOMICS, 2012) Gomez, Daniel; Chumacero, Romulo A.; Paredes, Ricardo D.
    One of the pillars of the educational voucher system is that competition between schools to attract students would improve the quality of the education provided. Surveys in Chile have suggested that parents are not aware of the performance of their children's schools. In this paper, we assess the effect of public information of school quality on the school choice by parents. We use a data set which includes measurements of the distance between homes and schools, and the performance of the school measured by a standardized tests and the school fee for two distinct periods (1996 and 2003). Whereas in 1996, information regarding school performance was scarce, it was widespread in 2003. We conclude that regardless of these considerations, school performance is an important determinant of school choice. Thus, parents appear to act "as if" they knew it when choosing a school. Nevertheless, making public the information regarding the performance of the schools has made it a more important factor in choosing a school.
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    Should Students Be Allowed to Miss?
    (ROUTLEDGE JOURNALS, TAYLOR & FRANCIS LTD, 2011) Paredes, Ricardo D.; Ugarte, Gabriel A.
    Many educational policymakers consider attendance as a tool to induce learning. Researchers also agree that attendance has a positive effect on learning; however, there are few empirical studies that measure the nature and significance of that effect. The authors analyzed the effect of class attendance on academic performance and evaluated the existence and importance of a minimum attendance requirement. Using student data from a sample of public primary schools in Chile, and considering for endogeneity and sample selection bias, they found two important results. First, attendance had a relevant and statistically significant effect on educational performance. Second, the existence of a threshold was identified, but educational performance did not continue to decrease after a certain number of absences, which seems to contradict policies that have a minimum attendance requirement.
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    TAKEOVERS IN THE WORLD AND PRIVATE BENEFITS OF CONTROL UNDER THE VARIOUS REGULATIONS IN FORCE
    (FONDO CULTURA ECONOMICA, 2015) Patricia Jurfest, Sonia; Paredes, Ricardo D.; Riutort, Julio
    We review the corporate takeover regulation in place in the world and find evidence that it is converging from the Market Rule (MR) towards the Equal Opportunity Rule (EOR). The literature on the economic rationale of these rules shows that the Private Benefits of Control (PBC) affect control changes; in particular, the EOR has the potential to preclude inefficient transfers but also to slow down the overall activity of the corporate control market. Jurfest, Paredes and Riutort (2015) proposes a model to estimate the PBC under the different regulations, nesting as a special case the well-known model of Block Premium Barclay and Holderness (1989) and Dyck and Zingales (2004). In this paper we illustrate the applicability and consistency of this model to estimate the PBC under the different regulatory regimes in place and under alternative distributions of the bargaining power of the seller of control.
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    The dynamics of the labor markets in Chile
    (2007) Lima, Victor O.; Paredes, Ricardo D.
    Through flows from 3 states, employment, unemployment and out of the labor force, we analyze the dynamics of labor markets in Chile from 1962-2007. We identify some periods of different labor market regimes and relate them with changes inflexibility. We found that reforms such as that of 1967, which introduced the "just cause" requirement to fire workers, did not help workers to keep their jobs, but there is no evidence of significant changes in inflexibility. Other labor regimes significantly affected transitions, but surprisingly, it was the new regime identified in 1990, that increased mobility. We interpret this as the result of the consolidation of a flexibility prone model that, until then, had been associated with an unpopular imposition by the military regime. Finally, we do not find any evidence showing that after 1998 the changes in labor participation and consequently, that the explanations of the changes in the unemployment rate could be associated with "added and discouraged worker effects."
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    The quality gap in Chile's education system
    (COMISION ECONOMICA PARA AMERICA LATINA Y EL CARIBE, 2011) Luis Drago, Jose; Paredes, Ricardo D.
    The quality gap in education between Chilean schools with different administrative structures (especially in the case of municipal schools and private subsidized schools) has long been a subject of analysis and discussion within the wider debate surrounding the relative efficiency and role of public education. Unconditioned differences in the results of standardized tests that point to higher levels of quality in private schools diminish when sociodemographic factors are controlled for, but the question as to what control variables should be used and which methodology is the most appropriate, as well as the extent of the reduction, all continue to be a subject of debate. Here we undertake a meta-analysis of 17 of the main studies that have been done on the subject. The analysis shows how sensitive the results are to the controls and estimation methods that are used. In the aggregate, private subsidized schools score approximately four points higher than municipal schools do. This is a statistically significant and educationally relevant differential.