José Ignacio González

The structure of domestic firm production networks

with Alonso Alfaro-Ureña, Mariany Fuentes, Isabela Manelici and José P. Vásquez.

Status: New draft coming soon!

Abstract: This paper characterizes in depth the domestic firm production network of a less-developed country. Namely, we combine firm-to-firm transaction data with other administrative data sources to produce a set of stylized facts about the Costa Rican production network and compare them against those found in other contexts such as Belgium, Chile, and Japan. Our results suggest that our stylized facts reflect intrinsic characteristics of firms' behavior that hold across countries with different levels of development. Some of our findings are (i) the distributions of the intermediate inputs, connections, transactions, and the size of firms are highly asymmetric; (ii) the distribution of transactions between firms is similar, controlling for the number of connections; (iii) there is negative assortativity between buyers and sellers; (iv) the number of links explains most of the variation in intermediate input transactions across firms; (v) most firm connections are made locally within a few kilometers; (vi) firms that generate more revenue on average sell to more distant customers; and (vii) although most firms do not trade directly abroad, they do so indirectly.

Pleasing the voters? Electoral manipulation through voter-attractive expenditures: Evidence from Costa Rican municipalities. [Paper] [Slides (in Spanish)] [Replication package]

with André Campos and Augusto del Solar.

Status: Revise and resubmit at Latin American Economic Review.

Abstract: We study the Political Budget Cycle of voter-friendly spending in local governments in Costa Rica elected every four years. We built a novel panel of election results, mayor characteristics, and disaggregated expenditures for each municipality between 2006 and 2020. We estimate a dynamic panel model to find the change in spending in the political campaign year, defined by the 365 days before casting ballots. We find that expenses in social activities increase by 36% in the year before elections, and there is a consistent decrease in multiple spending subheadings in the year before the campaign year, such as overtime and durable goods, between 6% and 35%. Contrary to theory, most categories did not increase in the last year of the mayor's term. We provide institutional evidence of possible delays associated with the execution of expenditures and analysis of an apparent intent of saving to expand fiscal possibilities close to the election and intense surveillance by regulatory authorities.

Potencial eléctrico de Costa Rica para la Criptominería. (2021). [Link]

with André Campos, Alberto Sequeira, Luis D. Valverde and Asdrúbal Vargas.