It is very likely that you got here by mistake. For some reason, Pacha is a bread brand, which
apparently is a nice sourdough that is organic, gluten-free, vegan, and naturally fermented.
Their website is this one.
About me
I am a PhD student in Political Science at the University of Toronto, specializing in
International
Relations and Public Policy. My research primarily focuses on the political dynamics of
trade agreements and sanctions. Due to this interest, I am a Fellow at the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy.
My academic background includes a Master of Arts in Political Science from the
University
of Toronto, a Master of Science in Statistics from the Catholic University of Chile, and an Engineering
degree from
the University of Chile. Should you need it, I can provide my academic and professional CV upon request. For
any
queries or further information, please contact me at .
I am convinced that a comprehensive understanding of economic and financial sanctions between countries can
be achieved by integrating
ideas, interests, institutions, and structures. I aim at studying this combining Natural Language Processing
(NLP) and Econometrics to analyze and quantify the economic
repercussions of sanctions. This is detailed in the Research
section.
My research interest has led me to develop advanced R, Python, and C++ skills. My GitHub profile showcases my open-source
projects,
predominantly focused on gravity estimation, data wrangling in R, and data visualization using Shiny. More
details
can be found in the Open Source section.
Additionally, I maintain a blog (pacha.dev/blog), where I post various
notes
and tutorials. Some highlights include "Creating LaTeX Figures with Inkscape", "A Crash Course on PostgreSQL
for R
Users", and "A Step-by-Step Guide to Write an R Package that Uses C++ Code (Ubuntu)". These posts reflect my
ongoing
commitment to both learning and sharing knowledge in the field.
Trivia: My blog post Comparing
SQLite, DuckDB and Arrow with UN Trade Data made it to the top ten on Hacker News.
Random reference of the day (brought to you with JavaScript)
Research
Research Interests
International Relations: Trade Agreements, Sanctions, Tariff and Non-Tariff Measures.
Canadian Politics: Advocacy Coalitions, Federal Hubs, CAN-USA-MEX Transnational Policymaking.
Public Policy: Public-Private Trade Programs, Exports Diversification and Sustainability, Labour
Reconversion.
Research Methods: Generalized Linear Models, Structural Gravity Model, General Equilibrium Estimation.
Published Articles
Vargas, Mauricio. 2020. "Economiccomplexity: Computational Methods for Economic Complexity." Journal of
Open Source Software 5 (46): 1866. https://doi.org/10.21105/joss.01866.
Cited by
Guerzoni, Marco, Massimiliano Nuccio, and Federico Tamagni. "Pre-entry knowledge base complexity and
post-entry growth:
evidence from Italian firms." Industrial and Corporate Change 33, no. 1 (2024): 126-151. https://doi.org/10.1093/icc/dtad037.
Sankot, Ondřej, Tereza De Castro, Jana Vlčková, and Cristina Procházková Ilinitchi. 2023. "Mapping of
Capabilities and Export Opportunities of Czechia." Prague Economic Papers 32 (2): 159–83. https://doi.org/10.18267/j.pep.829.
Guerzoni, Marco, Massimiliano Nuccio, and Federico Tamagni. 2022. "Discovering Pre-Entry Knowledge
Complexity with Patent Topic Modeling and the Post-Entry Growth of Italian Firms." LEM Papers Series.
Laboratory of Economics and Management (LEM), Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies, Pisa, Italy. https://econpapers.repec.org/paper/ssalemwps/2022_2f25.htm.
Ondoš, Slavomír, Žofia Sinčáková, and Oto Hudec. 2022. "Advancement and New Spatial Patterns of the Creative
Sector in the Old Industrial Structure." In The Creative Class Revisited, 241–67. World Scientific.
https://doi.org/10.1142/9789811267659_0009.
Plessis, Michael du, and Wouter Bam. 2022. "Iops: A Python Package for the Input-Output Product Space
Methodology." In 2022 IEEE 28th International Conference on Engineering, Technology and Innovation
(ICE/ITMC) & 31st International Association For Management of Technology (IAMOT) Joint Conference,
1–8. https://doi.org/10.1109/ICE/ITMC-IAMOT55089.2022.10033299.
Meier, M. 2020. "Green Growth in the Technology Space – Regional Diversification Pathways in Europe." Master
Thesis. https://studenttheses.uu.nl/handle/20.500.12932/38037.
Pérez-Hernández, Carla Carolina, Blanca Cecilia Salazar-Hernández, Jessica Mendoza-Moheno, Erika Cruz-Coria,
and Martín Aubert Hernández-Calzada. 2021. "Mapping the Green Product-Space in Mexico: From Capabilities to
Green Opportunities." Sustainability 13 (2): 945. https://doi.org/10.3390/su13020945.
Wölwer, Anna-Lena, Jan Pablo Burgard, Joshua Kunst, and Mauricio Vargas. 2018. "Gravity: Estimation Methods
for Gravity Models in R." Journal of Open Source Software 3 (31): 1038. https://doi.org/10.21105/joss.01038.
Cited by
Lenormand, Maxime. "TDLM: An R package for a systematic comparison of trip distribution laws and models."
Journal of Open Source Software 8, no. 88 (2023): 5434. https://doi.org/10.21105/joss.05434.
Oshan, Taylor. "12. Spatial interaction modeling." Handbook of spatial analysis in the social
sciences (2022): 208. https://www.e-elgar.com/shop/gbp/handbook-of-spatial-analysis-in-the-social-sciences-9781789903935.html.
Moravec, Petr. 2022. "Impacts of Brexit Referendum on European Banks: Evidence from Country-by-Country
Reporting." Univerzita Karlova, Fakulta sociálních věd. https://dspace.cuni.cz/handle/20.500.11956/174029.
Oshan, Taylor M. 2022. "Spatial Interaction Modeling." OSF Preprints. https://doi.org/10.31219/osf.io/m3ah8.
Herman, Peter. 2021. "Gegravity: General Equilibrium Gravity Modeling in Python." SSRN Scholarly Paper.
Rochester, NY. https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3832208.
Ha, Le. 2021. "Impacts of COVID-19 Pandemic on International Trade in Goods of OECD Countries." VNU
Journal of Economics and Business 1 (2). https://js.vnu.edu.vn/EAB/article/view/4574.
Porto, Massimiliano. 2020. "The Gravity Model of Trade." In Using R for Trade Policy Analysis: R Codes
for the UNCTAD and WTO Practical Guide, edited by Massimiliano Porto, 65–81. SpringerBriefs in
Economics. Cham: Springer International Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-34529-7_4.
Pre-Prints
Vargas Sepúlveda, M. "Economic Effects of Chile FTAs and an Eventual CTPP Accession." arXiv, September 28,
2022.
https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2209.14748.
Thesis
Master in Political Science
Vargas Sepúlveda, M. "NAFTA is the Worst Trade Deal in the History of Trade Deals, Maybe Ever." University
of Toronto, 2023.
Master in Statistics
Vargas Sepúlveda, M. "Gravity Modelling Into R: Strengthening Analytical Capacity of ESCAP Member States."
UN ESCAP and
P. U. Católica de Chile, 2021.
Research Statement
Since the end of World War II, sanctions have increased in number,
but their effectiveness has decreased (The
Economist 2021), which raises the question whether policy makers
implement sanctions to satisfy domestic coalitions or achieve other
goals. The economic consequences of sanctions can be explored at the
sectoral level, distinguishing categories such as agriculture, energy,
manufacturing, mining, and services. The current political and economic
order justifies the need to account for the interdependence between
different sectors of a national economy in global trade (Sbragia 2010; Vargas Sepúlveda 2020).
I proposed the thesis project "Trade Sanctions and Rule-Making," where
I shall answer the question "Who wins and who loses with sanctions?" I
will focus on trade sanctions between political allies and the variation
of effects between industries. This will uncover general patterns about
how these mechanisms work, and to explain why and when policymakers
deviate from World Trade Organization practices that reduce global trade
uncertainty. The project is relevant due to the spiking complexity of
global sanctions (Morgan, Syropoulos, and Yotov
2022; Coates 2022; Ossa 2014) and the rise of protectionism (Walter 2021; Fajgelbaum et al. 2020).
I intend to explore how Generalized Linear Models, in particular the
Structural Gravity Model (Burgard et al.
2018), can be used to computationally simulate the impact of
political decisions, such as a sanction being implemented. The model
shows how the resulting changes in one sector in one country causes a
chain reaction with consequences in GDP and other measures of economic
welfare for third party countries (Vargas
Sepúlveda 2021; Larch et al. 2016).
I aim to corroborate and expand existing sanctions databases (Felbermayr et al. 2020) and commodities trade
data (Borchert et al. 2021). I intend to
produce accurate sectoral trade databases for most of or all UN
countries. One core feature of my work will be correcting mismatches in
the data between importers and exporters, and cover as many gaps as
possible by using administrative data from the UN and state-of-the-art
linear models for imputation.
A comprehensive depiction at the sectoral level will enable me to
study specific sanctions’ impact and explore how policy toolkits affect
different actors, ideas, and institutions (Lasswell 1970), and to balance theory and
information-gathering (Simeon 1976). My
contribution will be to integrate our political and economic
understanding of sanctions, by creating a methodology to estimate the
impact of sanctions that policy makers could use to evaluate the
effectiveness, success, and impact of their agendas.
References
Borchert, Ingo, Mario Larch, Serge Shikher, and Yoto V. Yotov. 2021.
"The International Trade and
Production Database for
Estimation (ITPD-E)."
International Economics (Paris) 166: 140–66. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.inteco.2020.08.001.
Burgard, Jan Pablo, Joshua Kunst, Mauricio Vargas Sepúlveda, and Anna
Lenna Woelwer. 2018. "Gravity: Estimation
Methods for Gravity Models in
R." Journal of Open Source Software 31 (3):
1038. https://doi.org/10.21105/joss.01038.
Coates, Benjamin. 2022. "A Century of
Sanctions." Origins. https://origins.osu.edu/article/economic-sanctions-history-trump-global?language_content_entity=en.
Fajgelbaum, Pablo D., Pinelopi K. Goldberg, Patrick J. Kennedy, and Amit
K. Khandelwal. 2020. "The Return to
Protectionism." The Quarterly Journal of
Economics 135 (1): 1–55. https://doi.org/10.1093/qje/qjz036.
Felbermayr, Gabriel, Aleksandra Kirilakha, Constantinos Syropoulos,
Erdal Yalcin, and Yoto V. Yotov. 2020. "The Global Sanctions Data
Base." European Economic Review 129: 103561–61. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.euroecorev.2020.103561.
Larch, Mario, José-Antonio Monteiro, Roberta Piermartini, and Yoto V
Yotov. 2016. An Advanced Guide to Trade Policy Analysis:
The Structural Gravity Model. World Trade Organization
Geneva. https://vi.unctad.org/tpa/web/vol2/vol2home.html.
Lasswell, Harold D. 1970. "The Emerging
Conception of the Policy
Sciences." Policy Sciences 1 (1): 3–14. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00145189.
Morgan, T. Clifton, Constantinos Syropoulos, and Yoto Yotov. 2022.
"Economic Sanctions: Evolution,
Consequences, and Challenges."
School of Economics Working Paper Series, November. https://ideas.repec.org//p/ris/drxlwp/2022_012.html.
Ossa, Ralph. 2014. "Trade Wars and Trade
Talks with Data." American Economic
Review 104 (12): 4104–46. https://doi.org/10.1257/aer.104.12.4104.
Sbragia, Alberta. 2010. "The EU, the US,
and Trade Policy: Competitive Interdependence in the Management of
Globalization." Journal of European Public Policy 17
(3): 368–82. https://doi.org/10.1080/13501761003662016.
Simeon, Richard. 1976. "Studying Public
Policy." Canadian Journal of Political
Science/Revue Canadienne de Science Politique 9 (4): 548–80. https://doi.org/10.1017/S000842390004470X.
The Economist. 2021. "Sanctions Are Now a Central Tool of
Governments’ Foreign Policy." The Economist. https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2021/04/22/sanctions-are-now-a-central-tool-of-governments-foreign-policy.
Vargas Sepúlveda, Mauricio. 2020. Leontief: Input-Output
Analysis. https://CRAN.R-project.org/package=leontief.
———. 2021. Solutions Manual for An
Advanced Guide to Trade
Policy Analysis in R. 2nd
ed. UN ESCAP. https://r.tiid.org/R_structural_gravity/.
Walter, Stefanie. 2021. "The Backlash Against
Globalization." Annual Review of Political Science 24
(1): 421–42. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-polisci-041719-102405.
