e-Repositori UPF :: Informes (Departament d'Economia i Empresa)

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Cooperation in intercultural crisis and conflict environments research
(2025-08-20) Glab Frontera, Leonard
This research investigates (RQ#1) how cooperation can emerge in intercultural crisis and conflict environments. It develops and applies the ECOOPx, a six-dimensional framework to analyze cooperation dynamics across diverse crisis stages. Through a mixed-methods approach and multi-scenario case studies in international politics, business, education, and society, the study identifies both readiness and resistance patterns shaping cooperation outcomes. Key findings highlight the decisive role of relational dimensions in sustaining long-term cooperation, the strengthening effect of early conflict resolution, the importance of collective memory and early crisis detection, and the positive contribution of cultural diversity, which enhances creativity and problem-solving despite generating leadership tensions. This is an ongoing and open-ended research project that engages with increasingly complex realities, continuously deepening and expanding its conclusions while examining the transformational changes that define our times.
Industrialization without innovation
(2023-09) Bustos, Paula; Castro-Vincenzi, Juan; Monràs, Joan; Ponticelli, Jacopo
Labor-saving technologies in agriculture can foster structural transformation by releasing workers who find jobs in manufacturing. The traditional view is that factor reallocation towards manufacturing generates innovation and productivity growth. We document, instead, that regions more exposed to a large and exogenous increase in agricultural productivity in Brazil industrialized but experienced lower manufacturing productivity growth. Workers released from agriculture were mostly unskilled and primarily moved to the least skill-intensive manufacturing industries. This paper explores the various mechanisms that can account for the observed manufacturing productivity decline. Changes in worker composition and lower incentives to innovate within manufacturing play prominent roles.
Labor market competition and the assimilation of immigrants
(2022-06) Albert, Christoph, 1988-; Glitz, Albrecht Christian Ekkehard, 1978-; Llull, Joan
This paper shows that the wage assimilation of immigrants is the result of the intricate interplay between individual skill accumulation and dynamic labor market equilibrium effects. When immigrants and natives are imperfect substitutes, rising immigrant inflows widen the wage gap between them. Using a production function framework in which workers supply both general and host-country-specific skills, we show that this labor market competition channel explains about one fifth of the large increase in the average immigrant-native wage gap across arrival cohorts in the United States since the 1960s. This figure increases to one third after also accounting for relative demand shifts due to technological change.
The effects of climate change on labor and capital reallocation
(2024-03) Albert, Christoph; Bustos, Paula; Ponticelli, Jacopo
Climate change is expected to reduce agricultural productivity in developing countries. Classic international trade and geography models predict that the optimal adaptation response is a reallocation of capital and labor from agriculture towards sectors and regions gaining comparative advantage. In this paper, we provide evidence on the effects of recent changes in climate in Brazil to understand to what extent factor market frictions constrain this reallocation process. We document that persistent increases in dryness do not generate capital reallocation but a sharp reduction in credit to all sectors in both drying areas and financially integrated regions. In addition, dryness generates a large reduction in agricultural employment. Workers staying in drying regions reallocate towards manufacturing but climate migrants are allocated to small firms outside of manufacturing in destination regions. The evidence suggests that frictions in the interbank market and spatial labor market frictions constrain the reallocation process from agriculture to manufacturing.
Shock absorbers and transmitters: the dual facets of bank specialization
(2022-11-25) Iyer, Rajkamal; Michaelides, Alexander; Kokas, Sotirios; Peydró, José-Luis
This paper highlights the dual facets of bank specialization. After negative industry-specific shocks, banks specializing in an affected sector act as shock absorbers by increasing their lending to firms in that sector at lower interest rates than non-specialized banks. This lending is to profitable firms, thus not consistent with zombie lending. However, when there are funding constraints, increased lending to the affected sector by specialized banks is accompanied by a simultaneous cut in lending to unrelated sectors, thereby transmitting the shock. These firms compensate by raising funds externally. However, in tight financing conditions, there are negative real effects.
Household leverage and mental health fragility
(2022-11) Andersen, Asger Lau; Iyer, Rajkamal; Johannesen, Niels; Jørgensen, Mia; Peydró, José-Luis
We use detailed administrative records to show that high household leverage increases mental health fragility, with persistent negative economic effects. After adverse life events, e.g. heart attacks or job losses, individuals with higher ex ante leverage experience larger increases in mental health problems. The effects are long-lasting and stronger in times of financial crisis. Parallel pre-trends, robustness to non-parametric controls, and IV estimation suggest the results are not driven by confounding unobservables. High leverage is also associated with worse long-run earnings dynamics at the time when loan arrears and mental health problems emerge, suggesting tenacious scarring effects of leverage.
Borrower versus bank channels in lending: experimental- and administrative-based evidence
(2021-12) Michelangeli, Valentina; Peydró, José-Luis; Sette, Enrico
We identify the relative importance for bank lending of borrower (demand-side) versus bank (supply-side) factors. We submit thousands of fictitious mortgage applications, changing one borrower-level factor at time, to the major Italian online mortgage platform. Each application goes to all banks. Borrower and bank factors are equally strong in causing and explaining loan acceptance. For pricing, borrower factors are instead stronger. Moreover, banks supplying less credit accept riskier borrowers. Exploiting the administrative credit register, there is borrower-lender assortative matching, and the bank-level strength measure estimated on the experimental data is associated to credit supply and risk-taking to real firms.
Capital controls, corporate debt and real effects
(2021-09) Fabiani, Andrea; López Piñeros, Martha; Peydró, José-Luis; Soto, Paul Eduardo
Non-US firms have massively borrowed dollars (foreign currency, FX), which may lead to booms and crises. We show the real effects of capital controls, including prudential benefits, through a firm-debt mechanism. Our identification exploits the introduction of a tax on FX-debt inflows in Colombia before the global financial crisis (GFC), and administrative, proprietary datasets, including loan-level credit register data and firm-level information on FX-debt inflows and imports/exports. Our results show that capital controls substantially reduce FX-debt inflows, particularly for firms with larger ex-ante FX-debt exposure. Moreover, firms with weaker local banking relationships cannot substitute FX-debt with domestic-debt and experience a reduction in total debt and imports upon implementation of the policy. However, our results suggest that, by preemptively reducing pre-crisis firm-level debt, capital controls boost exports during the subsequent GFC, especially among financially-constrained firms.
Monetary policy, labor income redistribution and the credit channel: evidence from matched employer-employee and credit registers
(2023-03) Jasova, Martina; Mendicino, Caterina; Panetti, Ettore; Peydró, José-Luis; Supera, Dominik
We document the heterogeneous effects of monetary policy on labor market outcomes via credit channel. Using employee-employer and credit registers in Portugal, we show that falling rates increase wages, hours worked and employment more in financially constrained small and young firms. Consistent with the capital-skill complementarity mechanism, we document an increase in the skill premium and show that financially constrained firms increase both physical and human capital investment the most. We uncover a central role of the credit channel with stronger state-dependent effects during crises. The effects are fully driven by firms with bank credit.
Screening and loan origination time: lending standards, loan defaults and bank failures
(2022-08) Bedayo, Mikel; Jiménez, Gabriel; Peydró, José-Luis; Vegas, Raquel
We show that loan origination time is crucial for bank lending standards over the credit cycle, as well as for ex-post loan-level defaults and bank-level failures. We use the credit register in Spain for the business loans over the 2002-15 period focusing on the time of a loan application and its granting. First, when VIX is low (proxying for good times) banks shorten the time to originate a loan, particularly to less-capitalized (riskier) firms. Results suggest that bank moral hazard incentives are a key mechanism. Shorter loan origination time to ex-ante riskier firms in good times is especially stronger for: (i) banks with less capital (proxying for moral hazard problems between bank owners and taxpayers/debtholders); (ii) non-listed banks (proxying for moral hazard problems between bank management and shareholders); (iii) loans to firms in geographical areas which do not form the bank’s main market and experience a real estate bubble (proxying for moral hazard problems between local loan officers and the bank headquarter), mainly if those areas have more bank competition; or, relatedly, stronger effects on loans granted to firms operating in industries which the bank is not most specialized at (proxying for moral hazard problems between different parts within the bank). Second, shorter loan origination time is associated with higher ex-post defaults at the loan-level, and aggregated at the bank-level, with higher likelihood of bank failure or other strong bank distress events, overall consistent with lower screening (time).
Media capture by banks
(2022-03) Durante, Ruben, 1978-; Fabiani, Andrea; Laeven, Luc; Peydró, José-Luis
Do media slant news in favor of the banks they borrow from? We study how lending connections affect news coverage of banks earnings reports and of the Eurozone sovereign debt crisis on major European newspapers. We find that newspapers cover announcements by their lenders – relative to those of other banks – significantly more when they report profits than when they report losses. Such pro-lender bias is stronger for more leveraged outlets, and tends to operate on the extensive margin for general-interest newspapers and on the intensive margin for financial newspapers. Regarding the Eurozone crisis we find that newspapers connected to banks more exposed to stressed sovereign bonds are more likely to promote a narrative of the crisis favorable to banks and to oppose debt-restructuring measures detrimental to creditors. Our findings support the concern that financial distress and increased dependence on creditors may undermine media companies’ editorial independence.
Capital controls, domestic macroprudential policy and the bank lending channel of monetary policy
(2021-08) Fabiani, Andrea; López Piñeros, Martha; Peydró, José-Luis; Soto, Paul Eduardo
We study how capital controls and domestic macroprudential policy tame credit supply booms, respectively targeting foreign and domestic bank debt. For identification, we exploit the simultaneous introduction of capital controls on foreign exchange (FX) debt inflows and an increase of reserve requirements on domestic bank deposits in Colombia during a strong credit boom, as well as credit registry and bank balance sheet data. Our results suggest that first, an increase in the local monetary policy rate, raising the interest rate spread with the United States, allows more FX-indebted banks to carry trade cheap FX funds with more expensive peso lending, especially toward riskier, opaque firms. Capital controls tax FX debt and break the carry trade. Second, the increase in reserve requirements on domestic deposits directly reduces credit supply, and more so for riskier, opaque firms, rather than enhances the transmission of monetary rates on credit supply. Importantly, different banks finance credit in the boom with either domestic or foreign (FX) financing. Hence, capital controls and domestic macroprudential policy complementarily mitigate the boom and the associated risk-taking through two distinct channels.
Global financial cycle, household credit, and macroprudential policies
(2021-09-04) Epure, Mircea; Mihai, Irina; Minoiu, Camelia; Peydró, José-Luis
We show that macroprudential policies dampen the impact of global financial conditions on local credit cycles. For identification, we exploit exogenous variation in the U.S. VIX and household and business credit registers in a small open economy, where banks depend on foreign funding and macroprudential measures vary over a full boom-bust cycle. When the VIX is low, tighter macroprudential policies (i) reduce household lending, notably for riskier (FX and high DSTI) loans and by banks dependent on foreign funding, (ii) increase local currency lending to real-estate firms, and (iii) dampen house prices and economic activity in areas with higher FX-loans.
Management schemes in the public Catalan hospital system
(2017-04-04) Ortún Rubio, Vicente; Serra Burriel, Miquel; Manganelli, Anton-Giulio
Background: The Results Centre (CdR) of the Integrated Public Use Healthcare System of Catalonia (SISCAT) is a comprehensive network of public information about healthcare utilization and results at all levels. The aim of the present study is to explore the CdR associations between different domains of activity and health outcomes and the different management schemes present in the public system. Methods: We performed several linear regression models with panel data from all SISCAT hospitals N=66 for the period 2012-2015 on general indicators of adequacy, safety, effectiveness, efficiency and economic outcomes over management system. We control for geographic fixed-effects, time trends, activity and patient complexity to overcome unobservables. Results: We find several statistically significant associations between activity, health outcomes and management scheme. We only find differences between Direct Public Management (ICS1) and Consortiums and Public Companies (ICS2) in readmission rates for diabetes episodes. Other Public companies (ICS3) are only associated with lower readmission rates for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease readmission rates. Private-for-Profit hospitals are associated with poorer adequacy measured as cesarean section rate, and longer length of stay for femoral neck fracture and acute myocardial infraction than other management forms. There are structural associations for some of the selected indicators that are potentially explained by the network structure. Discussion : This study provides suggestive evidence on the potential associations between management schemes and hospital activity and outcomes indicators in the SISCAT public healthcare provision system for the 2012-2015 period, these results were not sensible to the robustness checks performed.
From finance to fascism
(2020-11-17) Doerr, Sebastian; Gissler, Stefan; Peydró, José-Luis; Voth, Hans-Joachim
Do financial crises radicalize voters? We study Germany’s banking crisis of 1931, when two major banks collapsed and voting for radical parties soared. We collect new data on bank branches and firm-bank connections of over 5,500 firms and show that incomes plummeted in cities affected by the bank failures; connected firms curtailed their payrolls. We further establish that Nazi votes surged in locations exposed to failing Danatbank, led by a prominent Jewish manager and targeted by anti-Semitic Nazi propaganda. Our results suggest a synergy between cultural and economic factors: Danatbank’s collapse boosted Nazi support especially in cities with deep-seated anti-Semitism; and the Nazis gained few additional votes in cities exposed to collapsing Dresdner Bank, which was not the target of Nazi hate speech. Danat-exposed and non-exposed cities were similar in their pre-crisis characteristics and exhibited no differential pre-trends; firms borrowing from Danat had lower leverage before the crisis than other firms. Unobservables are unlikely to account for the results.
Monetary policy and inequality
(2021-03) Andersen, Asger Lau; Johannesen, Niels; Jørgensen, Mia; Peydró, José-Luis
We analyze the distributional effects of monetary policy on income, wealth and consumption. We use administrative household-level data covering the entire population in Denmark over the period 1987-2014 and exploit a long-standing currency peg as a source of exogenous variation in monetary policy. We consistently find that the gains from softer monetary policy in terms of income, wealth and consumption are monotonically increasing in the ex ante income level. The distributional effects reflect systematic differences in exposure to the various channels of monetary policy, especially non-labor channels (e.g. leverage and assets). Our estimates imply that softer monetary policy increases income inequality by raising income shares at the top of the income distribution and reducing them at the bottom.
Who truly bears (bank) taxes? : evidence from only shifting statutory incidence
(2020-12) Jiménez, Gabriel; Martínez-Miera, David; Peydró, José-Luis
We show strong overall and heterogeneous economic incidence effects, as well as distortionary effects, of only shifting statutory incidence (i.e., the agent on which taxes are levied), without any tax rate change. For identification, we exploit a tax change and administrative data from the credit market: (i) a policy change in 2018 in Spain shifting an existing mortgage tax from being levied on borrowers to being levied on banks; (ii) some areas, for historical reasons, were exempt from paying this tax (or have different tax rates); and (iii) an exhaustive matched credit register. We find the following robust results: First, after the policy change, the average mortgage rate increases consistently with a strong – but not complete – tax pass-through. Second, there is a large heterogeneity in such pass-through: larger for borrowers with lower income, a smaller number of lending relationships, not working for the lender, or facing less banks in their zip-code, thereby suggesting a bargaining power mechanism at work. Third, despite no variation in the tax rate, and consistent with the non-full tax pass-through, the tax shift increases banks’ risk-taking. More affected banks reduce costly mortgage insurance in case of loan default (especially so if banks have weaker ex-ante balance sheets) and expand into non-affected but (much) ex-ante riskier consumer lending, experiencing even higher ex-post defaults within consumer loans.
Risk mitigating versus risk shifting : evidence from banks security trading in crises
(2023-02) Peydró, José-Luis; Polo, Andrea, 1983-; Sette, Enrico; Vanasco, Victoria
We show that risk-mitigating incentives dominate risk-shifting incentives in fragile banks. We study security trading by banks, as banks can easily and quickly change their risk exposure within their security portfolio. For identification, we exploit different crisis shocks and supervisory ISIN-bank-month-level data. Less capitalized banks take relatively less risk after financial stress shocks. Results hold within identical regulatory capital risk weights categories. Moreover, additional tests suggest that banks’ own incentives, rather than supervision, are the main drivers. Results hold for the different crisis shocks since 2007/08, including the COVID-19 one. A model of bank behavior rationalizes our findings.
Credit demand versus supply channels : experimental- and administrative-based evidence
(2021-07) Michelangeli, Valentina; Peydró, José-Luis; Sette, Enrico
(July 2020) This paper identifies and quantifies –for the first time– the relative importance of borrower (credit demand) versus bank (supply) balance-sheet channels. We submit fictitious applications (varying households’ characteristics) to the major Italian online-mortgage platform. In this way we ensure that all banks receive exactly the same mortgage applications, and that –for each application– there are other identical ones except for one borrower-level characteristic. We find that: (i) Borrower and bank channels are equally strong in causing (and explaining) loan acceptance (each channel changes acceptance by 50 p.p. for the interquartile range and explains 29% of R-square). (ii) Differently, for pricing, borrower factors are much stronger. (iii) Banks supplying less credit accept riskier borrowers. Finally –exploiting administrative credit register data– we document borrower-lender assortative matching: safer banks have more credit relations with safer firms. Moreover, the measure of credit supply estimated in the experiment (differently from a very similar measure estimated from the observational mortgage data) determines bank credit supply to firms and risk-taking in administrative data.
Production and financial networks in interplay : crisis evidence from supplier-customer and credit registers
(2020-07-09) Huremovic, Kenan; Jiménez Zambrano, Gabriel; Moral-Benito, Enrique; Peydró, José-Luis; Vega-Redondo, Fernando
We show that bank shocks originating in the financial sector propagate upstream and downstream along the production network and triple the impact of direct bank shocks. Our identification relies on the universe of both supplier-customer transactions and bank loans in Spain, a standard operationalization of credit-supply shocks during the 2008–09 global crisis, and the proposed theoretical framework. The impact on real effects is strong, and similarly so, when considering: (i) direct bank shocks to firms versus first-order interfirm contagion; (ii) first-order versus higher-order network effects; (iii) downstream versus upstream propagation; (iv) firm-specific versus economy-wide shocks. Market concentration amplifies these effects.

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