All about ideology? Reading Piketty´s with Latin American lenses

This review essay evaluates Capital and Ideology in light of the Latin American experience. Given its history of exploitation and high levels of inequality, the region constitutes an essential case study. By considering the Latin America case, we can also benefit from the many insights coming from within the region and often overlooked by the Anglo‐Saxon (dominant) literature. The paper makes two different arguments. First, asymmetries in economic and political power are the main drivers of long‐term inequality. Following insights from structuralism, I show how the organization of the global economy has shaped domestic patterns of income distribution in many parts of the world. The dependent character of economic development together with the power of domestic elites explain Latin America's stubborn inequality; ideology has historically been more an instrument than an underlying driver. Second, we cannot understand the evolution of income distribution without considering the role of dictatorships. While Capital and Ideology explains convincingly why liberal democracies are not working, it never properly considers the risk and costs of (conservative) authoritarian regimes. In thinking about policy responses, the essay also highlights the importance of strengthening democracy, fighting dictatorships, and enhancing the influence of social movements.     

Collective risk aversion

In this article we analyze the risk attitude of a group of heterogeneous agents and we develop a theory of comparative collective risk tolerance. In particular, we characterize how shifts in the distribution of individual levels of risk tolerance affect the group’s attitude towards risk. In a model with efficient risk-sharing and two agents an increase in the level of risk tolerance of one or of both agents might have an ambiguous impact on the collective level of risk tolerance; the latter increases for some levels of aggregate wealth while it decreases for other levels of aggregate wealth. For more general populations we characterize the effect of first-order like shifts (individual levels of risk tolerance more concentrated on high values) and second-order like shifts (more dispersion on individual levels of risk tolerance) on the collective level of risk tolerance. We also evaluate how shifts in the distribution of individual levels of risk tolerance impact the collective level of risk tolerance in a framework with exogenous egalitarian sharing rules. Our results permit to better characterize differences in risk taking behavior between groups and individuals and among groups with different distributions of risk preferences.     

The Double Challenge of Market and Social Incorporation: Progress and Bottlenecks in Latin America

Has the past decade of sustained economic growth and political transformations reversed Latin America's historical failure to secure market and social incorporation? To address this question this article draws on the experiences of Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Peru and Uruguay by distinguishing between short‐term outcomes – which may depend on benign international conditions – and policy changes, which are more important for long‐term performance. It highlights the overall success of both Brazil and Uruguay and shows that the other countries have made more progress in terms of social than market incorporation.     

Bimodality based on the generalized skew-normal distribution

This paper focuses on the development of a new extension of the generalized skew-normal distribution introduced in Gómez et al. [Generalized skew-normal models: properties and inference. Statistics. 2006;40(6):495–505]. To produce the generalization a new parameter is introduced, the signal of which has the flexibility of yielding unimodal as well as bimodal distributions. We study its properties, derive a stochastic representation and state some expressions that facilitate moments derivation. Maximum likelihood is implemented via the EM algorithm which is based on the stochastic representation derived. We show that the Fisher information matrix is singular and discuss ways of getting round this problem. An illustration using real data reveals that the model can capture well special data features such as bimodality and asymmetry.     

Nonmanipulable decision mechanisms for economic environments

In the social choice literature studying the problem of designing institutions for collective decision making, it is customary to (implicitly) assume that each dimension of the social outcome is of public interest (i.e., that each individual's welfare depends on every dimension of the outcome). Thus, the scope of the conclusions obtained is very limited. Here social decision problems with and without that public character are considered and it is shown that the same negative results arise in most cases; namely, that only dictatorial mechanisms are immune to the participants' manipulations. These results are obtained without requiring that the mechanisms produce Pareto optimal outcomes (they must simply be minimally responsive to the participants' preferences), which deepens their pessimistic character.I am deeply grateful to my advisor, Mark Walker, for his continuous guidance and encouragement. I wish also to thank Salvador Barberà, John Weymark, and two anonymous referees for helpful comments.     

Framing the tendency to betray one's good intentions. Akrasia as a dialogical dynamic

Akrasia, otherwise known as ‘weakness of will’, is a state of mind whereby people act deliberately against their better judgment. This paper aims to provide a conceptual framework for understanding akrasia from psychosocial perspectives that assume the self is multiple and strongly interconnected with the relational flow of which it is a part. Drawing on key ideas from Dialogical Self Theory, we analyze the main dialogical dynamics that can generate akratic episodes with reference to how individuals organize their personal position repertoire, and to the relational and socio-cultural setting in which the actions are taken. The discussion enables us to identify some indicators to frame the tendency to betray one's good intentions, and to offer some suggestions on how to reduce the occurrence of the various forms of akrasia analyzed.     

The Development and Initial Validation of a Psychoanalysis Use/Non-Use Scale among a Sample of Hong Kong Helping Professionals.

ABSTRACT

This article reports on the construction and initial validation of the Psychoanalysis Use/Non-Use scale (PUNU) and the complementary Conflicts with Hong Kong Chinese Culture scale (CHKCC), developed for assessing the penetration of psychoanalysis among counseling professionals in Hong Kong. A total of 217 Hong Kong social workers, psychologists, and counselors were surveyed to assess the scales' internal psychometric properties. Factor analysis confirmed a four-factor structure for the PUNU, and a unidimensional structure for the CHKCC, with 17 and 9 items, respectively. Internal reliability of both scales was good and discriminative validity was supported by comparisons with background information. These scales could help to identify factors that affect the understanding of psychoanalysis among professionals and could be useful for educational purposes.     

Telecommunication and suicide prevention: hopes and challenges for the new century

Development of information technology has created new opportunities and challenges in suicide prevention, research, and clinical practice. This article presents an overview of the wide range of telecommunication-based suicide prevention approaches. Interventions using the Internet, telephone, and videoconferencing are discussed, including crisis intervention, referral, and support, suicide risk assessment, psychotherapy for individuals at risk, and online-based suicide prevention training and education. Research regarding effectiveness of telecommunication-based suicide prevention in various demographic and clinical populations is reviewed, as well as concerns regarding this type of intervention. Future areas of research and development in the use of telecommunication media in prevention of suicide are discussed.     

Vertical and Horizontal Inequality in Ecuador: The Lack of Sustainability

We analyse the evolution of vertical and horizontal inequality in Ecuador in the long-run (1990–2016), as well as during and after the recent commodities boom (2005–2014). Using data from censuses, living standard measurement surveys, and employment surveys we show that Ecuador has made significant progress in reducing inequality, particularly since 2000. However, inequality has not decreased further since 2011. We argue that a key factor behind the reduction and ensuing stagnation of inequality is the dynamic of oil revenues, particularly regarding its effect on economic growth and on the financing of redistributive policies. Using the decomposition of the Gini coefficient by income source proposed by Lerman and Yitzhaki (Rev Econ Stat 67:151–156, 1985) we show that during the last decade there has been a shift away from market sources towards sources of income derived from government expenditures. Following the end of the commodities boom, this process is no longer sustainable. Indeed, we show that the underlying causes that led to the change in the sources of income started long before the end of the boom. The temporary shock following the 2008 financial crisis already affected the structure of Ecuador’s public finances and its current account. And, since around 2011, its institutions and labour market indicators have also deteriorated. We conclude that sustainable inequality reductions require improving the current institutions.

     

SEPARATING BETWEEN UNOBSERVED CONSUMER TYPES: EVIDENCE FROM AIRLINES

We propose an alternative approach to identify unobserved consumer types and assess whether firms price discriminate. Unlike other screening schemes that rely on quantity discounts or product differentiation, in our finite mixture structure individuals have unit demands and the product is homogeneous. We implement the model using an original U.S. airlines data set. The results support the existence of two demand types. The high‐type “business” traveler is less price sensitive, has a higher valuation, and pays a higher price than the low type “tourist.” The proportion of high types also increases as the departure date nears. (JEL C23, L93, R41)