Mauricio Sarrias

Universidad de Talca · Facultad de Economía y Negocios

This paper introduces the package gmnl in R for estimation of multinomial logit models with unobserved heterogeneity across individuals for cross-sectional and panel (longitudinal) data. Unobserved heterogeneity is modeled by allowing the parameters to vary randomly over individuals according to a continuous, discrete, or mixture distribution, whic...

Rchoice is a package in R for estimating models with individual heterogeneity for both cross-sectional and panel (longitudinal) data. In particular, the package allows binary, ordinal and count response, as well as continuous and discrete covariates. Individual heterogeneity is modeled by allowing the parameter associated with each observed variabl...

Within the realm of logit-type random parameter models to address unobserved heterogeneity in preferences there are two dominant approaches: the mixed logit model, which assumes parametric and continuous heterogeneity distributions, and the latent class logit model, which is a discrete and semiparametric counterpart of mixed logit. In addition to o...

Individual-specific posterior distributions are an attractive tool for disentangling the tastes for each person in the sample. However, there exists some risks and certain limitations regarding their use. This study reviews and summarizes the theoretical literature about the individual-specific posterior distributions derived from the Mixed Logit m...

This article proposes a two recursive equation model to correct for endogeneity in latent class Probit models. Concretely, it is assumed that there exists an endogenous and continuous variable defined as a predictor, while unobserved heterogeneity is conceptualized as a vector of parameters that varies across individuals following a discrete distri...

This article uses a discrete choice experiment carried out in the city of Antofagasta, Chile, to understand consumer's preferences for urban drinking water. To disentangle the perceptions and valuation of drinking water attributes, we propose a willingness-to-pay (WTP)-space model where the WTPs for water attributes are distributed as a mixture-of-...

This article estimates the individuals’ non-pecuniary benefit of engaging in pro– environmental behaviors (PEB) using a large sample from Ecuador. As a novelty, we estimate a model that allows incorporating both unobserved heterogeneity in preferences and controlling for the potential endogeneity of income through instrumental variables. Although b...

This study analyzes the labor market dimension of a worldwide social concern: the growing level of obesity. Using detailed, individual information of Chilean workers, the study finds a strong evidence of a wage penalty for women as body size increases, whereas men seemingly enjoy a wage premium for being overweight. Several hypotheses are tested fo...

This study analyzes the effect of spatial competition on public schools’ efficiency in Chile, an extreme case of market-oriented reforms in the educational sector. To address this issue, we use a measure of competition that captures three major characteristics of market competition in a spatial context: the number of competitors, based on distance...

Eliciting willingness to pay (WTP) for city amenities is not an easy task due to both endogeneity problems and unobserved heterogeneity in individuals' preferences. We address these two issues by using a city choice experiment to infer monetary values (WTP) associated with relocation attributes of a hypothetical job offer. Adopting a latent class l...

This study focus on models with spatially varying coefficients using simulations. As shown by Sarrias (2019), this modeling strategy is intended to complement the existing approaches by using variables at micro level and by adding flexibility and realism to the potential domain of the coefficient on the geographical space. Spatial heterogeneity is...

In this article we use the life satisfaction approach to assess the non-pecuniary costs of Mental health impacts after the 2010 Chile earthquake. By linking both subjective well-being valuation literature with studies that describe psychological impacts after natural disasters, we are able to quantify how big a compensation should be to leave indiv...

It is widely recognized by scholars that amenities affect the individual well-being. Ample empirical evidence has been provided for developed countries, although this analysis for developing economies is scant. The aim of this paper is to study the association between locational specific characteristics and self-reported measures of subjective well...

Long‐distance commuting (LDC) is a growing phenomenon in specialized countries in extractive industries such as Chile. There has also been a growing concern about the potential impacts on the health of long‐distance commuters. This paper formalizes the relationship between commuting distance and self‐assessed health status and shows the monetary va...

This paper investigates the hypothesis that the spatial concentration of economic activity might impair national growth, using the experiences of Brazil and Chile. In the first stage we have used regional data to estimate country-specific models in which regional growth is conditioned by a set of controls, considering population density as a measur...

Using subjective well-being estimations, this study analyzes whether compensating variations vary across space using a cross-sectional data set from Chile. To achieve this goal, it describes and compares two econometric ways of modelling unobserved spatial heterogeneity. Both approaches allow compensating variations to vary across spatial units by...

This folder contains the R scripts to replicate the Monte Carlo exercise carried out in "Individual-specific point and interval conditional estimates of latent class logit parameters". The "Readme" file explains each script.

Autonomous vehicles use sensing and communication technologies to navigate safely and efficiently with little or no input from the driver. These driverless technologies will create an unprecedented revolution in how people move, and policymakers will need appropriate tools to plan for and analyze the large impacts of novel navigation systems. In th...

Autonomous vehicles use sensing and communication technologies to navigate safely and efficiently with little or no input from the driver. These driverless technologies will create an unprecedented revolution in how people move, and policymakers will need appropriate tools to plan for and analyze the large impacts of novel navigation systems. In th...

Continuous and discrete unobserved heterogeneity have been widely used in modeling discrete choice models. This paper shows how these modeling strategies can be used to capture and model spatial heterogeneity or locally varying coefficients for different latent structures. We also outline the main advantages and disadvantages of both models. Then,...

Rchoice is a package in R for estimating models with individual heterogeneity for both cross-sectional and panel (longitudinal) data. In particular, the package allows binary, ordinal and count response, as well as continuous and discrete covariates. Individual heterogeneity is modeled by allowing the parameter associated with each observed variabl...

Implementation of the maximum simulated likelihood method in R for the estimation of multinomial logit models with random parameters. The models supported by gmnl are the multinomial or conditional logit (MNL), the mixed multinomial logit (MIXL), the scale heterogeneity multinomial logit (S-MNL), the generalized multinomial logit (G-MNL), the laten...

Using detailed survey data on management practices, this paper uses recent advances in unconditional quartile analysis to study the changes in the within country distribution of management quality associated with country convergence to the managerial frontier. It then decomposes the contribution of potential explanatory factors to the distributiona...

The article describes functional specialization of the Chilean municipalities ("comunas"), controlling for their industrial mix between 1992 and 2002 with information from the Population and Housing Censuses. The analysis of global and local spatial auto-correlation of indices of functional specialization shows the existence of a pattern of spatial...