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In this paper, we study wage convergence and flexibility in the labour market of Argentinean provinces. We first review historical determinants and propose a theoretical interpretation: the higher the level of convergence in wages, the lower the convergence in employment and eventually in the product level, because of the low competitiveness of the Interior Area, which conspires, via a restriction of the balance of payments, against their growth. Then, we empirically analyze wage convergence and the degree of wage flexibility in provincial labour markets for the period 1997-2013. We find evidence of real wage convergence and low wage flexibility. This indicates that wages do not depend on provincial factors such as labour productivity or local unemployment but on national determinants such as centralized wage agreements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Household equivalence scales serve a key role in measuring income poverty. This paper analyzes poverty trends and levels under a set of alternative equivalence scales for Argentina and explores how the use of different scales modifies the demographic composition of the poor population. Results suggest that poverty levels are indeed affected by the choice of the scale, although trends are robust. There is evidence of changes in the demographic profile of the poor in favor of certain household types according to the scale employed. Results depend on how the poverty line is set. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides a methodology to decompose the redistributive effect of fiscal policy for individual income units that belong to groups. This methodology is useful to identify how much of redistributive effect and also progressive/regressive effects apply within groups, between groups and among overlapping units, and whether there are tensions between different effects. A case study with an application of fiscal policy in Argentina for year 2010 is provided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the correlation between the presence and the number of elderly people in households and the labor supply of men and women between 18 and 54 years old, using data from the Argentina Permanent Household Survey for an extended period. Does the presence of elderly people alter the labor participation of men and women at central ages? It is proposed that this is so and that the correlation direction correlation will depend on the contribution they make to the home, or the demand for care they generate. Through the application of traditional multivariate models, it was found that the presence and the number of elderly people in the household is negatively related to the labor participation of men and women at central ages, and, in some cases, it relates positively with the participation of women. The effects on working hours are more elusive. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to assess the impact of minimum wages on employment quality and the likelihood of transition between jobs of varying quality in both medium and large enterprises and the public sector in Argentina. So far there are no studies with a similar objective in our country. The analysis was developed from data from the Permanent Household Survey using the method of differences in differences. The results indicate that increased minimum wages decreases transitions to quality jobs mainly among informal workers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we test the positive -assortative- mating (PAM) hypothesis that posits that marriages can be positively sorted along the couple's education using Argentinian data. Using a regression approach, we find that the effect of husband's education on wife's education is positive and significant. Then, we empirically verify if the observed matching distribution is super-modular, i.e., the local log odds ratios of education are all positive. We conclude that the data (weakly) supports Becker's positive assortative mating hypothesis in Argentina. The model that best describes marriage formation is more consistent with preference for own type rather than with PAM. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We estimate a Currency Substitution model for 1980-2013 periods in Argentina. Following the Mongardini and Mueller (2000) specification, our paper studies the persistence of lower demand of local money, or dollarization, by including a hysteresis variable. By applying an ARDL (Auto Regressive Distributed Lags) model, we found a clear ratchet effect, which implies that in the short run agents do not adjust to changes on the fundamentals, leading to a significant hysteresis variable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses the effects that income nonresponse has on certain well-known inequality coefficients (e.g. Gini, Theil and Atkinson indexes). A number of statistical methods have been developed to impute missing values of incomes for nonrespondents. By simulating several patterns of income nonresponse on actual sub-samples of the Argentinean household survey, this essay analyses the effects that different correction methods produce on a set of inequality coefficients. It is proved that methods often used to correct for nonresponse can introduce important biases on inequality coefficients if the patterns of missingness assumed by such methods do not coincide with the actual pattern. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Applying a dynamic pseudo-panel to the earnings data in Argentina, the present paper estimates the long-term earnings mobility in the period 1985-2004. The results obtained herein show some earnings mobility over the long term in Argentina for male occupied workers. The results also suggest that the labor market in Argentina does not substantially contribute to the acceleration of the individual' earnings level recovery after a negative shock. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the empirical behavior of monthly secondary spreads from eighteen emerging market economies located in Asia, East Europe and Latin America from October 1997 to September 2002, a particularly turbulent period. A succession of events affected these economies such as the Asian crisis, the Russian default, the Brazilian devaluation, the Ecuadorian default, the Turkish crisis and the Argentine default. Our empirical estimations allow us to construct taxonomy of these crises. First, the Russian default and the Turkish crisis correspond to episodes of global reduction of portfolio flows to emerging sovereign debt markets. Second, the Brazilian devaluation was fundamentally an abatement of portfolio flows to Latin America and East Europe (except for Russia). Third, the Asian crisis and the Ecuadorian default were consistent with a rebalancing of portfolios in emerging markets. Fourth, although the Argentine crisis shares some similarities with the former crises, it is unique in the sense that it was fully anticipated long before it happened. Finally, in light of these results, policy-makers in emerging markets should be keenly aware of the possibility that their country might be hit by a crisis so structural reforms should also include policies that help to protect the country from these unruly episodes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]