Tesis de Maestría en Economía

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    Sex-ratios in dating apps: the dating equilibrium-shift hypothesis
    (2025?) Gonzo, Damian Antonio
    This study explores the impact of perceived sex ratios on dating behavior and mating strategies, introducing the Dating Equilibrium-Shift Hypothesis (DESH). DESH posits that individuals of the less numerous sex gain greater bargaining power in romantic interactions, thereby shaping the mating strategies of the more abundant sex. To test this hypothesis, a laboratory experiment was conducted with 136 participants (79 men, 57 women) using a simulated dating app. Participants were assigned to one of three manipulated sex ratio conditions: male-scarce, female-scarce, and balanced (control). They evaluated 50 profiles based on attractiveness, indicating their interest with a like, and assessed their willingness to commit to a long-term relationship. The results revealed that in female-scarce conditions, men exhibited lower selectiveness, with an 11.89% decrease in the likelihood of giving a like. Conversely, in male-scarce conditions, men became more selective relative to the female-scarce group, showing a 17% lower likelihood of giving a like, consistent with DESH predictions. Although no statistically significant differences were observed in the willingness to commit to long-term, the data suggest a pattern that aligns with theoretical expectations. Due to technical issues, data for women in male-scarce conditions were incomplete, limiting the interpretability of findings for this group. Despite this constraint, the study integrates evolutionary and economic perspectives to advance our understanding of mating dynamics and underscores the influence of sex ratios on dating decisions in digital environments.
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    “La soja es peronista”: evidence from commodity shocks and electoral outcomes in Argentina
    (2025-08) Garay Adriel, Germán
    This thesis investigates how exogenous shocks in international soybean prices affect electoral support for Peronist presidential candidates across Argentine municipalities. Drawing on a combination of historical analysis and quantitative methods, the study proposes that the political effects of commodity booms are shaped not only by material redistribution, but also by culturally persistent narratives rooted in Argentina’s foundational political cleavage between the urban-industrial Peronist coalition and the landowning agro-export elite. Using a difference-in-differences design, the analysis compares electoral outcomes in soybean-producing versus non-producing regions during periods of international price shocks between 2003 and 2023. The results show that, following positive price shocks, support for the Peronist party declines in agricultural regions while increasing in urban areas, even after controlling export taxes and macroeconomic distortions. This pattern suggests that some voters interpret commodity booms through historically embedded lenses: as threats to income in rural areas and as opportunities for symbolic justice in urban centers. Quantitatively, the symbolic mechanism is estimated to account for about half of the total regional divergence observed during boom years, highlighting the potential importance of cultural persistence in shaping electoral behavior. The findings are robust to alternative specifications using agroecological suitability indices and placebo tests and contribute to the empirical study of persistent cultural mechanisms rooted in Argentina’s political history.
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    Fiscal dominance, shocks, and the currency distribution of sovereign debt: the case of a small open economy
    (2025-08) Di Iorio, Juan Pablo
    This study examines the effects of incorporating fiscal dominance, based on the Fiscal Theory of the Price Level, into a New Keynesian Small Open Economy (NK-SOE) model. This framework enables a comparison between the responses of an economy characterized by fiscal dominance and those of canonical NK-SOE models when faced with monetary or external shocks. Notable differences emerge in nominal variables, such as inflation rates and nominal devaluation, as well as in household consumption and the real exchange rate. Furthermore, the model is expanded to account for government debt issued in foreign currency, introducing a fiscal channel related to the currency composition of the government’s debt. Additionally, the structure of taxes and government expenditures—particularly fiscal revenues tied to the non-tradable sector—plays a significant role in shaping the economic response when the government issues debt in foreign currency.
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    Monetary policy in an uncertain world
    (2025-07) Soria, Matias Gonzalo
    Monetary policy has been a central tool for policymakers in contexts of high uncertainty, as well as in periods of relative calm. This article examines how the effects of monetary policy vary under different levels of uncertainty. A New Keynesian DSGE model with recursive preferences is solved using perturbation methods, and its response to a monetary policy shock is characterized under the presence of stochastic volatility. The model is contrasted with the data by estimating the same responses through local projections regressions. Both exercises suggest that monetary shocks have more pronounced effects under high uncertainty. The article concludes by discussing extensions aimed at improving the model’s fit with the data.
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    There is something in the water: the effects of a bad government on voter turnout
    (2025-07) López, Santiago
    This thesis exploits the 2014–15 Flint Water Crisis as a natural experiment to examine how a severe public health and governance failure affects electoral participation. Leveraging precinct-level turnout data for gubernatorial and presidential elections in Genesee County (1998–2020), I employ an event-study difference-in-differences design with fixed effects and controls for population and partisan composition. I find that, relative to neighboring precincts, voter turnout in Flint City declined by approximately 30 percent in the elections immediately following the crisis, a pattern that persists but loses statistical significance under “honest” bounds (Rambachan & Roth 2023) and synthetic DiD (Arkhangelsky et al. 2021) robustness checks. A parallel analysis of Republican vote share fails the pre-trend test, suggesting greater volatility in party support. These results highlight how acute institutional failure can erode democratic engagement, even in voluntary voting systems. The findings contribute to the literature on political behavior by providing causal evidence that exogenous shocks to public trust and welfare can suppress turnout, with implications for debates on accountability and institutional resilience.
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    Forecasting one day stock returns in Latin American markets: a horserace
    (2025-06) Sampron Noel, Alfredo Ignacio
    We investigate the predictive power of Generalized Autoregressive Conditional Heteroskedasticity (GARCH), Vector Autoregression (VAR), and Hidden Markov Models (HMM) for forecasting stock returns in Argentina, Brazil, and Mexico. Our research extends prior work by considering the impact of volatility and foreign exchange (FX) variations, including the implicit exchange rate between American Depository Receipts (ADRs) and local stock prices, particularly relevant for Argentina's capital controls. We address three key questions: which model offers superior predictive accuracy, whether incorporating exchange rates enhances predictive power, and which return denomination (local currency or USD) is easier to predict. Findings reveal that model rankings remain consistent across local currency and USD-denominated assets. Broad market indices are best captured by VAR models. Our results align with the finding that more sophisticated models tend to outperform benchmarks, yet performance varies significantly.
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    Estrategias de precios y competencia en mercados multilaterales: el rol de la dispersión de precios en plataformas
    (2025-06) Tau, Agustín Miguel
    Este trabajo propone un modelo de competencia por precios de plataformas con la presencia de dispersión de precios producto de la existencia de asimetrias de información en los agentes que las contraten. Se analiza la existencia de equilibrios para diversos casos donde el esquema de precios asignado por los intermediarios es simétrico. Este modelo presenta un equilibrio simétrico en estrategias mixtas en el cual la información que tienen los consumidores es clave para la composición de las estrategias de precios de equilibrio.
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    Do symbolic penalties work? : evidence from compulsory voting laws in Argentina
    (2025-06) Malament, Miriam
    Do symbolic penalties work? This paper provides causal evidence that even minimal, unenforced legal sanctions can influence civic behavior. I study a 2012 reform in Argentina that introduced optional voting for 16- to 17-year-olds, while voting from age 18 remained compulsory and formally subject to a small, unindexed fine of 50 pesos. Using a regression discontinuity design and administrative data from 15 national elections between 2015 and 2023, I find that turnout increases by about 20 percentage points at age 18, despite negligible enforcement. Complementary evidence from national survey data suggests this effect reflects expressive compliance: symbolic penalties act as normative signals, activating a sense of civic duty rather than deterring through material sanctions. The response is especially pronounced among lower-income and lower-education youth. These findings offer rare causal evidence that symbolic penalties can shape civic behavior by appealing to internalized civic norms rather than fear of punishment.
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    ¿Estabilidad o estancamiento?: la movilidad laboral argentina en la encrucijada
    (2025-02) Sanchez, Guido Emanuel
    Este estudio analiza el mercado laboral formal de Argentina utilizando un enfoque basado en los flujos de empleo y la teoría de búsqueda. A partir de datos del Sistema Integrado Previsional Argentino (SIPA), se calculan los flujos de contrataciones y desvinculaciones en el sector privado desde 2007, lo que permite un análisis detallado de la movilidad laboral. Los hallazgos resaltan dos resultados clave. Primero, la movilidad laboral en Argentina es significativamente menor que en Estados Unidos, donde las tasas de rotación laboral son un 50% más altas. Segundo, la relación entre la movilidad laboral y el crecimiento salarial en Argentina es débil, lo que sugiere que permanecer en el mismo empleo podría ser más beneficioso para la progresión salarial a largo plazo que cambiar de empleador. Se sugiere como una causa plausible de ambos fenómenos a la idea sustentada en la literatura que el alto grado de protección contra el despido podría generar incentivos para extender la duración del empleo, lo que fomenta una mayor inversión en capacitación específica para el puesto, pero al mismo tiempo desalienta la rotación.
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    Impacto del desarrollo minero en la priorización de inversiones en infraestructura de transporte en el noroeste argentino
    (2025-02) Ferrarini, Laura Rocío
    Esta tesis analiza el impacto del desarrollo minero en la priorización de inversiones en infraestructura de transporte en el noroeste argentino (NOA). En particular, se enfoca en el auge de la minería del litio como motor de transformación logística y económica en la región. Mediante un enfoque cuantitativo, se proyecta la demanda de transporte de carga para 2045 bajo diferentes escenarios, considerando tanto los productos generados como los insumos necesarios para la actividad minera. El análisis utiliza matrices origen-destino (MOD) y evalúa la derivabilidad de carga desde rutas hacia el sistema ferroviario, destacando las oportunidades de eficiencia logística. Los resultados muestran que la producción de litio y otros sectores emergentes generan una presión creciente sobre la infraestructura vial y ferroviaria del NOA. En un escenario conservador, se identifica la necesidad de pavimentar rutas clave y modernizar ramales ferroviarios estratégicos como la Línea Belgrano. En un escenario de expansión, se evidencia el potencial del transporte multimodal para reducir costos logísticos y mejorar la competitividad regional.
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    Land reform, ethnicity and political participation: evidence from Peru
    (2025-02) Condor Iturrizaga, Ronny Martin
    This paper examines the effects of Peru’s 1969 Land Reform on the political representation of marginalized ethnic groups in local elections. Using electoral data from 1963 to 1983, I employ surname analysis and a skin color detection algorithm to identify ethnic groups. Using a diff-in-diff framework, I show that greater exposure to land reform increases the candidacy of marginalized ethnic groups, but has no effect on their electoral success. I explore potential channels and find the creation of political parties of peasant origin could be plausible mechanisms for the presence of more candidates from marginalized ethnic groups.
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    Propuesta de alfabetización Mateo y el aprendizaje en contextos vulnerables
    (2025-02) Borhi, Matías
    Argentina, al igual que una vasta cantidad de países latinoamericanos, enfrenta un enorme desafío ante los crecientes niveles de desigualdad educativa. Este contexto se agrava al observar el bajo rendimiento escolar de los niños argentinos, el cual es reflejo de un alarmante nivel de analfabetismo. En 2019, 46% de los alumnos argentinos de tercer grado no alcanzaban el nivel de comprensión lectora esperado para su edad. En este escenario, Mateo, Propuesta de Alfabetización en Contexto, se presenta como una iniciativa innovadora que desarrolla estrategias de alfabetización adaptadas a la realidad sociocultural de los niños de primer y segundo grado en zonas vulnerables. Su objetivo es facilitar el aprendizaje de la lectoescritura en los primeros años escolares y de ese modo, reducir las brechas educativas existentes. El presente trabajo computa el impacto de Mateo en el nivel educativo de los alumnos beneficiarios. A partir de una muestra de niños construida ad-hoc en la Provincia de Salta en 2024, empleamos la metodología de diferencias en diferencias para estimar el impacto del Programa. Encontramos que recibir el tratamiento aumenta significativamente el desempeño en evaluaciones de lectura y escritura. Los resultados son robustos para alumnos de primer y segundo grado. Asimismo, hemos examinado estos hallazgos con datos disponibles para Buenos Aires. Se identifica una asociación positiva entre recibir el tratamiento y el nivel de lectoescritura alcanzado. Nuestros resultados destacan la importancia del material didáctico adaptado al contexto y del compromiso docente para mejorar la alfabetización.
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    Competition and innovation in the pharmaceutical industry: the case of generic drugs in Europe
    (2025-01) Bronstein, Milton Andrés
    Does competition foster innovation? Within the theoretical discussion on competition, there is still no consensus on how it affects innovation. Thus, from a theoretical approach, it is not clear what competition does to firms when it comes to efforts and expenditures on R&D. I contribute by taking an empirical approach to address this question in the pharmaceutical industry, where firms rely heavily on R&D. This study finds that generic drug regulations had a mixed impact on R&D expenditures in the pharmaceutical industry in Central, Northern, Southern, and Western Europe. In the short term, they curtailed such expenditures while they increased them in the long term. These results suggest that the relationship between competition and innovation may change over time. Having considered the late market penetration of generic drugs, laws allowing or mandating INN prescribing and authorizing generic substitution seem to have a negative impact on R&D expenditures two years after their approval. However, the same laws that allowed INN prescription and generic substitution show increases in R&D expenses five years after their passage. In the medium term, companies may spend less on R&D and more on advertising their current products. However, in the long term, they will redirect these resources to the development of new products that will distance them from competitors. As a result, both consumers and policymakers might be facing a trade-off between more affordable prescribed drugs and new or better medicines available earlier.
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    The economic effects of free contraceptive distribution: evidence from Argentina’s ENIA plan on the marriage market
    (2025-01) Podestá, Rosario
    This paper examines the economic effects of free long-acting contraceptive access on key socioeconomic variables, including marriage, education and labor market outcomes, using Argentina’s Plan Nacional de Prevenci´on del Embarazo No Intencional en la Adolescencia (ENIA) family planning program. The program involved the distribution of long-acting free contraceptives and the enhancement of sexual health services for adolescents. Implementation was targeted at counties with higher adolescent pregnancy rates. Using a difference-in-difference and event study approach, I find that access to free contraceptives led to an increase in marriage rates. The results support the parallel trends assumption and remain robust in an event study design and a placebo test. Additionally, a heterogeneity analysis reveals that the effects vary based on the lethality rate of COVID-19 across provinces. These findings highlight the relationship between reproductive health policies and economic outcomes, offering valuable insights for gender equality and development initiatives.
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    Selection of optimal window size and ensemble methods for rental price estimation with XGBoost: Evidence from Buenos Aires
    (2024?) Sosa, Juan Bautista
    In the context of forecasting rental prices of residential properties, the fact that the relationship between rents and property characteristics may be subject to significant changes over time can hinder the predictive performance of models that do not adjust to these changes. Previous studies have tested the accuracy of different statistical models in predicting rent prices, but none has focused on how the definition of the estimation window of observations used in the training stage can affect predictive performance. This paper explores the impact of selecting different window sizes in a forecasting experiment of rent prices in the City of Buenos Aires from 2020 to 2022 using the machine learning algorithm XGBoost. The results obtained for out-of-sample one-month-ahead forecasts indicate that the decision to use an expanding window or rolling windows is not trivial in terms of the achieved predictive performance. Among a set of rolling window sizes, the model with a size of 6 months yields the lowest error in terms of root mean square error and mean absolute error. Additionally, three methods that dynamically combine the predictions of models with different window sizes are tested. An ensemble method that outputs a weighted average of the predictions using time-varying weights based on the inverse of previous forecasting errors emerges as the superior strategy, producing a mean absolute percentage error of 19.7%. Overall, these results underscore the need to take into account the temporal dimension when selecting observations for training if the goal is to maximize out-of-sample predictive performance.
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    Something is coming: meteorite sightings and religious preferences
    (2024?) Navajas Jauregui, Juan Sebastian
    Can meteorite sightings intensify religious sentiments? This paper exploits the exogenous variability of meteorite sightings in the United States to investigate the causal relationship with religious intensity at the county level. The results show that meteorite sighting increases religiosity in the treated counties, as measured by the names children receive from their parents at birth. The historical perspective of this phenomenon allows me to analyse a society with a low dynamic in the flow of information, which is crucial for such a phenomenon to be seen as unpredictable and inexplicable. The hypothesis underlying this result is that religion serves as a response to the existentialist feelings aroused by such events. The results are in line with coping theory.
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    A drawing is worth a thousand words : analyzing children’s projective techniques with machine learning
    (2024-12) Banfi, Catalina
    Child maltreatment is a critical global issue with long-lasting physical, psychological, and social consequences. A major challenge in addressing this problem is substantial underreporting, as most cases occur within the home, preventing timely intervention and leaving many children without support. While detection tools exist, they are typically applied only to cases already within the system, resulting in a reactive rather than proactive approach to identifying at-risk children. The main objective of this thesis is to develop a machine learning algorithm to proactively enhance the detection of child maltreatment through the analysis of projective techniques applied to primary school children. Using data from an Inter-American Development Bank project, the study automates the evaluation of graphical indicators in children’s drawings, simulating psychologists’ cognitive processes to generate risk alerts and identify cases requiring further psychodiagnostic evaluation. The resulting algorithm achieved high accuracy metrics, enabling large-scale implementation while maintaining efficiency. The intervention costs approximately $2 USD per child and significantly reduces future costs associated with the long-term consequences of child maltreatment. This proposal, designed as a public policy for primary schools, trains teachers to identify key indicators in drawings, embedding detection into the educational system and optimizing resource allocation.
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    Impacto de las ciclovías protegidas sobre el mercado inmobiliario en la Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires
    (2024-12) Daboin Contreras, Carlos José
    La Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires (CABA) cuenta con una red de ciclovías protegidas de más de 300 kilómetros de longitud. Esta investigación presenta una evaluación cuasi-experimental del impacto de estas ciclovías sobre el precio de los inmuebles adyacentes, explotando la variación exógena en la fecha de construcción de sus tramos y datos georreferenciados de inmuebles publicados para la venta en plataformas de comercio electrónico durante el período 2018-2019. Estimaciones vía el método TWFEDD sugieren que la intervención no tuvo un impacto significativo sobre el precio de los inmuebles adyacentes. Sin embargo, un desglose de los efectos a nivel de comuna revela impactos positivos en la Comuna 6, negativos en la Comuna 13, y positivos en el mercado no residencial de la Comuna 14.
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    Statistical discrimination during the 1871 yellow fever epidemic in Buenos Aires
    (2024-11) Millas Caputo, Juan Francisco
    This paper aims to assess the existence (and if so, estimate the magnitude) of a discriminatory bias against low-income and immigrant households in the context of the 1871 yellow fever epidemic in Buenos Aires. The argument presents the previous anecdotal evidence on discrimination based on socioeconomic outcomes and nationality from government-appointed commissioners, and proposes this investigation as an econometric approach that assesses and quantifies the existence of this phenomenon using historical data. The identification strategy consists of commissioner-level fixed-effects models to control for individual-specific unobservable variables. The main takeaway is that, in line with previous anecdotal evidence presented by other authors, these households’ (conventillos) probability of being fined when non-compliant of hygiene norms was 14 p.p. higher than other types of households and the monetary value of the fines they received were 159 $m/c (pesos moneda corriente) higher.