Pamplona. January 14th, 2013.
Lorenzo Rotunno is a PhD candidate from The Graduate Institute of Geneva. During his visit, he discussed the idea that Free Trade Agreements (FTA) are more likely to be signed by governments that have a high probability of losing their power for the next term. By estimating how the change in the probability of an FTA is linked to the likelihood of government turnover, Rottuno concluded that countries are more likely to sign FTAs after the unexpected exit of their leaders; that is when the probability of political turnover is high. Rotunno furthe...
Pamplona. Janurary 14th, 2013
Joaquín Naval is a Ph.D. Candidate at the Universitat Autónoma de Barcelona. Naval delivered a seminar about the effects of the informal economy and long-term growth in developing countries. By creating a two-period overlapping generations model with children and working-age adults, he established a theoretical relationship between education, child labor, and the informal sector. Naval further highlighted the importance of using means-tested education subsidies as a way to end the poverty trap. He concluded that the long term benefit of inf...
Pamplona September 24th, 2012.
Ernesto Villanueva (Ph.D. Northwestern University of Chicago) works as a researcher for the Banco de España. During the NCID Seminar, Villanueva presented an in-depth analysis about one of his latest research papers, “Consumption and initial mortgage conditions”. His presentation focused on initial mortgage conditions and their effects on the consumption behaviour of home-owners in Spain. By using a data set based on the Spanish Survey on Household Finances, Villanueva examined the relationship between household consumption and factors,...