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- Top 100 economies: the new map of global economic powerPublication . Martins, Felipe
- Contribution-floor mandates: a welfare framework and evidence from ChilePublication . Dias, MateusMany health insurance systems link premiums to income through contribution floors: enrollees must spend at least a fixed share of their income on health insurance. These income-based mandates are economically distinct from the penalty-based mandates studied in the U.S. context, because they create a wedge between the premium paid and the plan’s actuarial price. I develop a framework that decomposes the welfare effect of a contribution-floor mandate change into a fiscal channel, the mechanical transfer arising from the price floor, and an equilibrium channel, the behavioral response through plan switching and risk pool recomposition coupled with supply-side responses. I implement the framework using administrative data from Chile’s private health insurance market (ISAPREs), where enrollees must pay at least 7% of their income in premiums. Raising the mandate from 7% to 8% of income redistributes approximately $38.9 million annually from enrollees to insurers while generating essentially no net welfare: about 12 thousand USD, three orders of magnitude smaller than the gross transfer. The equilibrium channel is negligible. Because the mandate operates as a near-pure transfer, it is dominated as a redistributive instrument by a revenue-equivalent direct cash transfer, which delivers roughly three times the distributionally weighted welfare.
- Eradicating adult disease: human capital, labor supply, and fertility in BrazilPublication . Oliveira, Priscila de; Dias, MateusWe estimate the long-run economic effects of eliminating Chagas disease, a chronic adult-onset tropical disease, using Brazil’s national vector-control campaign launched in 1975. Combining newly digitized local seroprevalence data with census microdata from 1970 to 2010, we exploit variation in baseline prevalence and cohort-specific exposure in a continuous-intensity difference-in-differences design. We first validate the empirical strategy by showing that areas with higher pre-campaign prevalence experienced larger subsequent declines in Chagas-related adult mortality. The main effects are concentrated in rural areas, where the disease burden was historically highest. In rural areas, Chagas eradication increased educational attainment, raised labor-force participation for both men and women, and generated positive effects on income with distinct cohort patterns across gender. Fertility declined for rural women, especially on the extensive margin. Effects in urban areas are weaker and more mixed, consistent with the historical concentration of vectorial transmission in rural dwellings. These findings show that controlling an adult-onset disease can generate long-run effects on education, labor-market outcomes, and fertility through improvements in expected adult health and survival.
- Population aging and the ballooning cost of nursing homesPublication . Cabezon, Francisco; Dias, MateusWe use data on the price of nursing home private rooms to estimate the effects of aging on long-term care (LTC) prices. We exploit regional variation in the dynamics of elderly population growth rates generated by the demographic composition in the distant past. We estimate a cross-region elasticity of LTC prices to the number of people aged 75 and more of 0.6. We argue that this cross-sectional estimate is robust to the presence of heterogeneous treatment effects and is a lower bound for the national estimate; thus, population aging explains at least 38% of the last decade's real increase in LTC price, and it will increase prices in 18% during the next decade. We study the mechanism behind our results and find evidence that regulation and the organization of industry, not the inelastic supply of nurses, is driving the increase in LTC prices.
- The artist wage penalty in the formal sectorPublication . Bernard, Anna; Gazel, MarcoWe provide the first within-worker evidence on the artist wage penalty in the formal sector. Using administrative matched employer-employee data covering the nearuniverse of formal private-sector workers in Portugal from 2010 to 2023, we find that workers transitioning into artistic occupations earn 1.5% less in total compensation. The aggregate penalty masks two offsetting margins: artists accept a 4.1% hourly wage discount but supply 2.6% more hours, consistent with Throsby’s (1994) workpreference model. The penalty is gender-neutral but varies across occupations, with photographers, film-related artists, and painters facing the largest hourly discounts and musicians compensating through longer hours. We then evaluate the Estatuto dos Profissionais da Área da Cultura, a 2022 Portuguese reform targeting bogus selfemployment in the cultural sector. The reform increased the share of formally employed artists in covered sectors, but the hourly wage penalty widened post-reform. Formalisation reduces precarity but does not close the artist wage gap, and its cost is partly borne by workers through wage compression.
- The anatomy of conglomerate investment a dual-sensitivity model of cash flow and financial slackPublication . Santos, Mário Coutinho dos; Mendes, Victor; Mota, Jorge HumbertoThis paper proposes and tests a "dual-sensitivity" model of investment in diversified firms, integrating the traditional investment–cash flow sensitivity (ICFS) with a novel channel: investment–financial‑flexibility sensitivity (IFFS). Drawing on the strategic flexibility view of multi‑business firms, we argue that financial slack—excess cash and unused debt capacity—provides the strategic fuel to exercise the real option of internal capital reallocation. Using a strictly balanced matched panel of 17,927 internal capital market (ICM) affiliates and standalone firms in the European Union (2012–2023), we examine how ICM efficiency, asset lumpiness, and financial slack jointly shape capital allocation. The results show that ICM affiliates exhibit a distinct investment profile: lower ICFS but a higher and more strategic IFFS, particularly when funding lumpy investments in high‑growth segments. These findings are robust to alternative measures of financial slack, investment opportunities, and asset lumpiness. By unifying research on financing constraints, real adjustment costs, and corporate strategy, this study demonstrates that financial slack is a critical enabler of the strategic flexibility embedded in complex organizations, and that ICMs create value by efficiently orchestrating slack toward highreturn, lumpy investments.
- Unconventional prudential policy: when are capital controls optimal?Publication . Belchior, Daniel; Reis, CatarinaIn an open economy with downward real wage rigidity, the effects of economic fluctuations may be amplified. Furthermore, the wage rigidity creates a negative externality since the current wage floor is a function of the past wage. If it is impossible to implement a fiscal devaluation, the optimal fiscal policy response to downward wage rigidity is characterized by time-varying labor and capital income taxes and zero capital control taxes. Prudential labor income taxes decrease when the wage floor is expected to bind in the future to reduce the current wage and the future wage floor. However, if labor income taxes are unavailable, it becomes optimal to use capital controls prudentially. In this case, a higher capital control tax implements a lower equilibrium wage through its effect on labor supply. We, thus, identify a novel mechanism for the optimality of capital controls in the context of downward wage rigidity
- Determinants of citations in tourism and hospitality studiesPublication . Correia, Antónia; Rodrigues, Paulo Manuel Marques; Kozak, Metin; Raposo, PedroCitation metrics are frequently used to assess research and rank journals and researchers. Nevertheless, this is still a process with asymmetric information. Tourism and hospitality research have matured within a small community and through a multidisciplinary scientific paradigm. This paper aims to understand the determinants of tourism and hospitality research citation patterns. To this end, a total of 101,968 papers within fifteen years (2004–2018) is analysed. Our empirical results suggest that authors’ prestige, the multidisciplinary nature of research, and the impact factor of journals and bibliometric articles are likely to increase an article’s citations. This paper represents a step forward in understanding the citation formation process in tourism and hospitality research.
- Treatment-resistant depression and major depression with suicide risk – the cost of illness and burden of diseasePublication . Sousa, Rute Dinis; Gouveia, Miguel; Nunes-da-Silva, Catarina; Rodrigues, Ana; Cardoso, Graça; Antunes, Ana; Canhão, Helena; Almeida, José Miguel CaldasIntroduction: Treatment-Resistant Depression (TRD) and Major Depression with Suicide Risk (MDSR) are types of depression with relevant effects on the health of the population and a potentially significant economic impact. This study estimates the burden of disease and the costs of illness attributed to Treatment-Resistant Depression and Major Depression with Suicide Risk in Portugal. Methods: The disease burden for adults was quantified in 2017 using the Disability-Adjusted Life Years (DALYs) lost. Direct costs related to the health care system and indirect costs were estimated for 2017, with indirect costs resulting from the reduction in productivity. Estimates were based on multiple sources of information, including the National Epidemiological Study on Mental Health, the Hospital Morbidity Database, data from the Portuguese National Statistics Institute on population and causes of death, official data on wages, statistics on the pharmaceutical market, and qualified opinions of experts. Results: The estimated prevalence of TRD, MDSR, and both types of depression combined was 79.4 thousand, 52.5 thousand, and 11.3 thousand patients, respectively. The disease burden (DALY) due to the disability generated by TRD alone, MDSR alone, and the joint prevalence was 25.2 thousand, 21 thousand, and 4.5 thousand respectively, totaling 50.7 thousand DALYs. The disease burden due to premature death by suicide was 15.6 thousand DALYs. The estimated total disease burden was 66.3 thousand DALYs. In 2017, the annual direct costs with TRD and MDSR were estimated at € 30.8 million, with the most important components being medical appointments and medication. The estimated indirect costs were much higher than the direct costs. Adding work productivity losses due to reduced employment, absenteeism, presenteeism, and premature death, a total cost of € 1,1 billion was obtained. Conclusions: Although TRD and MDSR represent relatively small direct costs for the health system, they have a relevant disease burden and extremely substantial productivity costs for the Portuguese economy and society, making TRD and MDSR priority areas for achieving health gains.
- Judicial enforcement, credit frictions, and the transmission of bankruptcy through firm networksPublication . Cerqueiro, Geraldo; Nogueira, GilWe show that weak judicial enforcement and credit frictions jointly govern the transmission of corporate distress through trade-credit networks. Weak judicial enforcement increases the losses associated with defaulted trade credit, while credit frictions limit trade creditors’ ability to absorb those losses. We exploit variation in court congestion generated by a nationwide reform that reassigned pending bankruptcy cases across courts. Trade creditors are more likely to go bankrupt when their trade debtor’s case is handled by a congested court and when they face binding credit frictions. Bank relationships mitigate these frictions and insulate trade creditors from distress transmission. A counterfactual exercise shows that moving from the least to the most efficient courts would reduce bankruptcy propagation by 40% and increase aggregate sales by 2%.