6 results on '"Loayza, Norman V."'
Search Results
2. International Benchmarking for Country Economic Diagnostics : A Stochastic Frontier Approach
- Author
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Kumbhakar, Subal C., Loayza, Norman V., and Norambuena, Vivian
- Subjects
STRUCTURAL ENDOWMENT ,STOCHASTIC FRONTIER ,COUNTRY DIAGNOSTICS ,BENCHMARKING ,ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT - Abstract
This paper discusses and illustrates the analytical foundations of international comparisons (or benchmarking) for assessing a country's potential for improvement along various dimensions of social and economic development. By providing a methodology for international benchmarking, discussing various alternatives and choices, and presenting a cross-country illustration, the paper can help practitioners be less arbitrary and more systematic in their approach to international comparisons, as well as more realistic in their expectations for a country's improvement. The paper presents the stochastic frontier approach and applies it to estimate feasible frontiers or benchmarks for each variable, country, and year. It then interprets a country's (one-sided) departure from the benchmark as inefficiency or potential for improvement. This contrasts with the literature that compares countries by looking at raw variables or indicators, without considering that countries differ in structural endowments that constrain the maximum performance that a country could achieve in a policy-relevant horizon. The Stochastic Frontier approach also improves upon the literature that uses regression residuals to measure performance. Regression residuals are hard to interpret as inefficiency, because they are mixed with noise and take positive and negative values. As an illustration, the paper uses a panel of 142 countries with yearly data for 2005-14 and considers a set of 10 development indicators. It finds that the potential for improvement does not follow a simple relationship with economic development, with some lower-income countries being closer to their own feasible frontier than more advanced countries are.
- Published
- 2020
3. Informality in the Process of Development and Growth.
- Author
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Loayza, Norman V.
- Subjects
ECONOMIC development ,ECONOMIC impact of emigration & immigration ,GROSS domestic product ,LABOR supply ,CAPITAL ,LABOR costs - Abstract
'Informality' is a term used to describe the collection of firms, workers and activities that operate outside the legal and regulatory systems. It is widespread in the majority of developing countries - in a typical developing economy, the informal sector produces about 35 per cent of GDP and employs 70 per cent of the labour force. This paper studies informality in the context of economic development by presenting a model and projections that link informality, regulations, migration and economic growth. This analytical framework highlights the trade-offs between formality and informality, the relationship between the different types of informality, and the connection between them and the forces of labour, capital and productivity growth. The paper models the behaviour of the informal sector based on the following fundamental asymmetry: formal firms confront higher labour costs, while informal firms face higher capital costs and lower productivity. Using mandated minimum wages as the policy-induced distortion, the model first studies the static allocation of formal and informal capital and labour in a modern economy. Second, it opens the possibility of labour migration from a rudimentary economy with ample supply of labour (e.g. rural areas or less advanced neighbouring countries). Third, the model analyses the dynamic behaviour of the formal and informal sectors, considering how they affect and are affected by economic growth and labour migration. Then, the paper presents projections for the size of labour informality, in the modern and rudimentary economies, in the next two decades for a large group of countries representing all regions of the world. The projections are based on the calibration and simulation of the model and serve to discuss its usefulness and limitations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2016
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
4. THE GROWTH AFTERMATH OF NATURAL DISASTERS.
- Author
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Fomby, Thomas, Ikeda, Yuki, and Loayza, Norman V.
- Subjects
NATURAL disasters ,ECONOMIC impact ,ECONOMIC development ,GROSS domestic product ,VECTOR autoregression model ,ECONOMIC activity ,TIME series analysis - Abstract
This paper traces the yearly response of gross domestic product growth--both aggregated and disaggregated into its agricultural and non-agricultural components--to four types of natural disasters: droughts, floods, earthquakes, and storms. The paper uses a methodological approach based on pooling the experiences of various countries over time. It consists of vector autoregressions in the presence of endogenous variables and exogenous shocks (VARX), applied to a panel of cross-country and time series data. The analysis finds heterogeneous effects on a variety of dimensions. First, the effects of natural disasters are stronger on developing than on advanced countries. Second, not all natural disasters are alike in terms of the growth response they induce, and some can even have positive effects on economic growth. Third, severe disasters often carry much worse effects than moderate effects do. Fourth, the timing of the growth response varies with both the type of natural disaster and the sector of economic activity. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2013
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
5. Natural Disasters and Growth: Going Beyond the Averages
- Author
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Loayza, Norman V., Olaberría, Eduardo, Rigolini, Jamele, and Christiaensen, Luc
- Subjects
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NATURAL disasters , *ECONOMIC development , *SUFFERING , *ECONOMIC sectors , *PANEL analysis , *EMERGING markets ,DEVELOPED countries - Abstract
Summary: Despite the tremendous human suffering caused by natural disasters, their effects on economic growth remain unclear, with some studies reporting negative, and others indicating no or even positive effects. To reconcile these seemingly contradictory findings reported in the literature, this study explores the effects of natural disasters on growth separately by disaster and economic sector. Applying a dynamic generalized method of moments panel estimator to a 1961–2005 cross-country panel dataset, three major insights emerge. First, disasters do affect economic growth but not always negatively, with effects that differ across types of disasters and economic sectors. Second, although moderate disasters (such as moderate floods) can have a positive growth effect in some sectors, severe disasters do not. Third, growth in developing countries is more sensitive to natural disasters than in developed ones, with more sectors affected and the effects larger and economically meaningful. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]
- Published
- 2012
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
6. El crecimiento económico en el Perú.
- Author
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Loayza, Norman V.
- Subjects
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ECONOMIC development , *ECONOMIC activity , *ECONOMIC stabilization , *PRODUCTION (Economic theory) , *ECONOMIC forecasting ,PERUVIAN economy - Abstract
This paper analyzes the experience of economic growth in Peru during the last five decades. It describes its principal characteristics, explains the changes along the period and predicts its future path. The methodological approach consists in a combination of accounting and econometric techniques, both based in comparisons between countries and periods of time. The study discovers that the most important turning points of the economic growth were caused by changes in the productivity of all inputs, instead of the simple accumulation of capital. Specifically, the paper finds out that the recover of the economic growth in Peru during the 1990's was caused by the process of structural reforms and stabilization and lasts until now. The future growth of the economy depends on the continuation and deepness of this process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2008
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
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