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Vinculamos más de un millón de evaluaciones de casi 200.000 profesores hechas por alumnos en el sitio web RateMyProfessors con información sobre la productividad de la investigación de casi 3.000 profesores en Google Académico (Google Scholar) a fin de ofrecer una caracterización sistemática de la relación entre las evaluaciones de los alumnos y las características de las clases, las universidades y los profesores, para comprobar si las evaluaciones de los alumnos tienen una relación condicionada con la productividad de la investigación. El estudio concluye que, si bien lo "fácil" e "interesante" que los alumnos consideran un curso son los factores más determinantes de sus evaluaciones, existe una prima de "apariencia" o "belleza", sin un componente sistemático de raza, edad o género. Sorprendentemente, se constata que la productividad de la investigación no es significativa o está negativamente relacionada con la evaluación de las capacidades docentes de un profesor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Voucher systems in education firmly rely on the parent's ability to choose their child's school at any time during their schooling years. This ability, however, is reduced by switching costs. Methods: Using an identification for each student from fourth grade in 2000 to eighth grade in 2004, so we were able to verify if they changed schools. Thus, we can compare the expected utility associated with the chosen school with a new school that was not available in 2000 and the estimation of switching costs. Results: We find that on average switching costs are statistically significant and economically relevant and that affect the decision to change the chosen school. Also, we show marginal changes in their levels of utility aren't sufficiently significant to make decision to change at chosen school identifying an eventual threshold. Conclusions: The natural concern regarding parents' capacity to react is given by the existence of switching costs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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 o f 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. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The educational voucher system builds on the pillars of informed choice and competition to improve the quality of the education provided. This document summarizes some of the results of recent literature on the subject, and discusses their public policy implications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: 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. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This paper develops a framework for evaluating the importance of the arrival of new information for forecasting, estimation, and decision making. By fusing known and recently developed statistical tests and concepts, the paper provides guidelines for detecting outliers, influential observations, innovations, and possible breaks in the end of the sample. The methodology is applied to analyze the Chilean CPI inflation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a robust finding for the relationship between money growth and inflation in Chile: inflation causes (precedes) money and not the other way around. This result holds irrespectively of the way in which monetary policy was conducted, the sample period, the choice of monetary aggregate, the consideration of conditional second moments, or the inclusion of inflation targets. A simple theoretical model is used to motivate why money and inflation are not necessarily correlated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite having accumulated physical and human capital at significant rates, Latin America's growth has been generally disappointing. Successful growth episodes have been accompanied by surges in TFP, sound and stable macroeconomic policies, and fewer distortions and government interventions. Structural breaks are often cited as sources of the disappointing and heterogeneous growth performance of countries in Latin America. We find that, once controlled for external shocks and a measure of distortions, the behavior of per capita GDP in a sample of Latin American countries is remarkably stable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents an editorial in which the author reflects on the 40th anniversary of the publication of the journal "Estudios de Economía." He provides various statistics related to the types of articles published, the journal's use of the internet, as well as readership information. Thanks are given to contributors and editors of the journal over its 40 years and hopes for the future are also explored.