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“The emergence of
biofuels and the co-movement of crude oil and agricultural futures”
(with Francisco Peñaranda),
This paper systematically
analyses whether there is a new connection between agricultural and
crude oil returns channelled through the emergence of biofuels. We
identify the recent link between the daily returns of oil and biofuel
feedstocks and provide formal structural break estimates of the
relationship. We also show that biofuel breaks are distinct from other
commodities, both in terms of of their magnitude and timing. Factors
influencing biofuels increase the correlation with oil on top of a
financialization alternative factor. The findings survive many
robustness checks and appear in the stock market.
“TV or not TV? Subtitling and English skills” (with Arturo Bris
and Albert Banal Estañol)
We study the influence of
television translation techniques on the quality of the English spoken
across the EU and OCDE. We identify a large positive effect for
subtitled original version as opposed to dubbed television, which
loosely corresponds to between one and a half and four years of English
education at school. We also identify a substitution effect between
television and teaching. Pupils in countries where television is in
original version do not learn much in their English classes, as their
knowledge is already high. As a result, subtitling countries on average
outperform their dubbing counterparts as long as the school education
variable takes a value smaller than 10 years. The importance of
subtitled television is robust to a wide array of specifications and is shown
to influence foreign direct investment and trade patterns.
“Separated by a common currency? Psychic
distances and international price disparities (with Arturo Bris)
Do psychic distances between
countries affect international price disparities? Do they influence the
effectiveness of currency unions? We study the influence of international
psychic distances on the euro price convergence during the 2001--2007
period. After controlling for common borders and local cost
determinants, we find that the introduction of the common currency has
only resulted in convergence inasmuch as countries are similar along
certain cultural traits, including language similarities, trust, and
national sympathy. The results appear both when one uses standard price
dispersion metrics and our own border width measurement. We also build
country clusters based on psychic distance variables.
“Production variability in spot
markets” (with Albert Banal-Estañol)
This paper analyses the
influence of production intermittence on spot markets. We use both game
theory and an adaptation of the Camerer and Ho (1999) behavioural
model. Controlling for costs, we find that intermittent technologies
yield lower prices when incumbents have individual market power, but
higher when they do not have it. This happens when firms are
risk-neutral and risk-averse, and also under different intermittence
and ownership configurations. Replacing high-cost assets with low-cost
ones results in higher prices than letting them co-exist. The findings
have implications for, among others, wholesale electricity markets, in
which wind power is increasingly important.
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