Colla-De-Robertis, Esteban
Thumbnail Image
Preferred name
Colla-De-Robertis, Esteban
Official Name
Colla de Robertis, Esteban
Alternative Name
ecolla
Main Affiliation
ORCID
Scopus Author ID
57195630608
Researcher ID
C-6651-2017

Research Output
Now showing 1 - 5 of 5
No Thumbnail Available
Publication

Local institutions in Peru and the presence and number of fast-food outlets

2017 , Colla-De-Robertis, Esteban , Navarro Castañeda, Sandro

Purpose: The paper aims to study the role of local institutions in the establishment of fast-food outlets in urban districts of Peru. In most urban districts, there are no fast-food outlets. The authors, therefore, study the effect of institutional quality on the presence or absence of these outlets and the number of outlets if these are present. Design/methodology/approach: The theoretical framework in which this paper is based on is the theory of agglomeration, which establishes that firms benefit from being close to each other. In particular, the paper builds on a model of market entry and competition in geographically independent local markets. An explicit expression was found for the equilibrium number of outlets (including zero) as a function of exogenous determinants of the demand for fast-food in each market, available infrastructure and institutional quality of the district’s government. Principal component analysis was used to construct measures of institutional quality based on administrative and organizational characteristics of district’s municipalities. These measures were incorporated as explanatory variables in a zero-inflated Poisson model, which is appropriate to handle count data and to accommodate excess zeros and which also allows the specification of different models for the zero part and the positive part. Findings: Institutional quality mainly affects the presence of fast-food outlets in a district. The quality of urban development management and use of information systems are relevant. An institutional variable particularly relevant in explaining the number of outlets is the presence of an investment programming office in the municipality. The authors confirm the general hypothesis of the paper: institutions have a role in explaining both the presence and number of fast-food outlets in a district. Overall, the results of this paper suggest that institutional quality of a municipal district is related to better infrastructure, which lowers the costs of establishing outlets. Research limitations/implications: Limitations in the availability of data at the regional and urban district level did not allow the authors to analyze other factors that affect entry decisions in the fast-food industry in Peru, such as controls to prevent corruption, legal uncertainty or crime. Another limitation was the lack of data on entry costs for each franchisee in each urban district. This forced the authors to use public infrastructure characteristics of the district as (imperfect) proxies of the entry costs. Practical implications: The instruments of urban development management and information systems can be effective at attracting investment to a district. These tools operate partly through an indirect effect, namely, the improvement of district infrastructure, which is necessary to reduce the costs of establishing companies. There is also synergy between national government’s programs to attract investment and the good institutional quality in local governments. On the contrary, poor local institutions can be an obstacle to the successful implementation of those national programs. Social implications: Foreign direct investment has a positive impact on the economic development of a country through knowledge spillovers. Therefore, any administrative reform to make local government practices more efficient can have an indirect impact on development. Originality/value: Principal component analysis is a statistical tool that can be important in building good measures of institutional quality by allowing the combination of different observable characteristics into one component that can be interpreted as an operational restriction. The count model allows the use of the primary, easily observable, dependent variable, namely, the number of outlets. Finally, the two-part model makes it possible to discern the effect of institutional quality on the presence or absence of outlets and the number of outlets if these are present. © 2017, © Emerald Publishing Limited.

View
No Thumbnail Available
Publication

Land tenure security and agrarian investments in the Peruvian Highlands

2021 , Navarro-Castañeda, Sandro , Arranz, José M. , Burguillo, Mercedes , Colla-De-Robertis, Esteban

The abundant empirical studies on the relationship between land tenure security and investment remain inconclusive. This work sheds light on this issue, estimating a simultaneous equation model of 9 different types of land investments and land tenure security using data from the Peruvian agrarian census. This study analyzed the case of the Peruvian highlands, which could be a suitable case study for discussing the importance of land tenure security and land tilting programs on rural development in developing countries due to its agrarian-based economic characteristics and for having an official land-titling program (the PETT). We found that tenure security was significantly and positively related to five land investments among the nine analyzed; however, the size of these effects is small, so its importance is lower than what it is a priori expected on institutional grounds. The effects were also negative for two investments for which customs seemed to be a good way of land management. Land-titling programs in developing countries seem to be a necessary but not sufficient policy approach to promote rural development. Our results indicate that where customs are functioning well, land-titling programs can be complement to but not a substitute for these customary institutions. The impacts of other socio-economic variables suggest that public programs promoting education and training as well as gender equality are important for the promotion of rural development.

View
No Thumbnail Available
Publication

A bayesian estimation of the economic effects of the Common Fisheries Policy on the Galician fleet: A dynamic stochastic general equilibrium approach

2019 , Colla-De-Robertis, Esteban , Da-Rocha, José-María , García-Cutrín, Javier , Gutiérrez, María-José , Prellezo, Raúl

What would have happened if a relatively looser fisheries policy had been implemented in the European Union (EU)? Using Bayesian methods a Dynamic Stochastic General Equilibrium (DSGE) model is estimated to assess the impact of the European Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) on the economic performance of a Galician (north-west of Spain) fleet highly dependant on the EU Atlantic southern stock of hake. Our counterfactual analysis shows that if a less effective CFP had been implemented during the period 1986–2012, fishing opportunities would have increased, leading to an increase in labour hours of 4.87%. However, this increase in fishing activity would have worsened the profitability of the fleet, dropping wages and rental price of capital by 6.79% and 0.88%, respectively. Welfare would also be negatively affected since, in addition to the increase in hours worked, consumption would have reduced by 0.59%.

View
No Thumbnail Available
Publication

The productivity cost of sovereign default: evidence from the European debt crisis

2015 , Alonso-Ortiz, Jorge , Colla-De-Robertis, Esteban , Da-Rocha, José-María

We calibrate the cost of sovereign defaults using a continuous time model, where government default decisions may trigger a change in the regime of a stochastic TFP process. We calibrate the model to a sample of European countries from 2009 to 2012. By comparing the estimated drift in default relative to that in no-default, we find that TFP falls in the range of 3.70–5.88 %. The model is consistent with observed falls in GDP growth rates and subsequent recoveries and illustrates why fiscal multipliers are small during sovereign debt crises. ©Economic Theory

View
No Thumbnail Available
Publication

The effect of a free trade agreement with the United States on member countries' per capita GDP: A synthetic control analysis

2021 , Colla-De-Robertis, Esteban , Garduño Rivera, Rafael

This study employs the synthetic control method (SCM) to estimate the economic effects of signing free trade agreements (FTAs) with the United States. This method allows for a counterfactual –the country's per capita GDP had it not signed a FTA–, which can be compared with the observed per capita GDP. This difference speaks to the causal impact of the FTA. We principally find that FTAs seem to have a heterogeneous impact. In particular, there is evidence that signing a FTA with the U.S. had a positive impact on Chile and Jordan's per capita GDP and that NAFTA harmed Mexico's per capita GDP. In several other cases, no significant economic impact is discernible. Besides, the more a country depends on the U.S. for its trade, the less beneficial signing a FTA with the U.S. is. This article contributes to the debate on the effectiveness of trade as a development strategy. In particular, the SCM opens up the possibility of a “case-by-case” analysis, ultimately revealing that a FTA with the U.S.–a country situated at the world's technology frontier–has heterogeneous outcomes and, by itself, does not guarantee economic development (obtained through a higher per capita GDP).

View