BUSCADOR RECOLECTA

In developing countries, the evidence regarding the direct and indirect effects of FDI on economic and financial performance at the firm level is mixed. To contribute to this literature, we provide empirical evidence of direct and indirect effects of FDI on firm’s performance, using return on assets (ROA), gross revenues and gross revenues growth rate as performance measures. We examine the private formal enterprise sector in Ecuador from 2007 to 2018. Our identification strategy relies on the use of the Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) methodology for dynamic panel data which allows us to control for potential endogeneity, autocorrelation and heteroskedasticity issues. The results suggest that firms with inward FDI grow faster than their counterparts, and firms with higher amounts of FDI as a share of total revenues have on average higher levels of gross revenues. Moreover, we find negative horizontal wages and gross revenues spillover effects on gross revenues growth rates, but positive horizontal gross revenues spillover effects on ROA. There is also significant evidence of negative horizontal spillover effects in all economic sectors, whereas evidence for forward and backward spillovers is heterogeneous across them.

This paper estimates the effect of the Organic Law for Productive Development, Attraction of Investments, Generation of Employment and Stability and Fiscal Balance on new investment and employment applied in August 2018 in Ecuador. Using event study designs and difference-in- differences models, I find that the policy implementation does not have an effect on the attraction of new investments or the creation of new employment for prioritised sectors compared to non-prioritised sectors. This matters from a policy perspective in a country with few private investments and a high share of people out of formal employment.

Oil price showed sharp fluctuations in recent years which revived the interest in its effect on inflation. In this paper, we discuss the relationship between oil price and inflation in Spain, at national and regional levels, and making the distinction between energy and non-energy inflation. To this end, we fit econometric models to measure the effect of oil price shocks on inflation and to predict them under different scenarios. Our results show that almost half of the volatility of changes in total inflation is explained by changes in oil price. As could be expected, the energy component of inflation drives this effect. We also find that, under the most likely scenarios, 1-year ahead total inflation will be moderate, with relevant differences across regions., This research was supported by Instituto Complutense de Analisis Economico (ICAE), as well as Universidad Complutense de Madrid/Banco de Santander through grants PR26/16-20270, 0412155 and a CT17/17-CT18/17 FPI scholarship. César Castro acknowledges financial support from Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades (Project DGCT, No. PGC2018-093542-B-I00). Andrés Barge-Gil acknowledges financial support from Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad (Project ECO2017-82445-R).