El presente documento de discusión (Issues Paper) no pretende abracar todos los elementos que se abordarán en la Nota Temática, sino que se limita a identificar de manera preliminar algunos temas de críticos para facilitar la discusión interna al Banco sobre el rumbo estratégico de la...

En este artículo, documentamos los cambios en la tasa de desempleo distinguiendo entre movimientos en la demanda y oferta de trabajo. Para ello, primero investigamos si existe evidencia de cambios en la elasticidad empleo producto. En segundo lugar, se analiza si el fuerte crecimiento de los...

This presentation argues that trade policy in the region has been too focused on removing tariffs, to the detriment of trade facilitation, particularly in transportation. It explores the impact of transport costs on trade in Latin America and the Caribbean, and argues that transport costs have...

This presentation aims at analyzing the impact of institutional and systemic effects of clustering and its consequences on upgrading and differentiation and division of labor in the electronics industry in Malaysia. The methodological approach consists of case studies. Two centers within the...

Seguro Popular (SP) is a social program introduced by the Mexican government in 2002 to provide health insurance to the 50 million Mexicans without coverage. The program has raised a debate on whether the program has had unintended consequences and distorted incentives facing workers,...

This paper provides evidence on the channels through which export promotion institutions affect bilateral trade using a sample of Latin American and Caribbean countries over the period 1995-2004. We find that these institutions have a larger impact on the extensive margin of exports, especially...

Do all exporters benefit the same from export promotion programs? Surprisingly, not matter how obvious this question may a priori be when thinking of the effectiveness of these programs there is virtually no empirical evidence on how they affect export performance in different parts of the...

Export promotion agencies provide exporters with a broad range of services, going from counseling to sponsoring their participation in international trade missions and fairs. These services may have heterogeneous effects and thus contribute differently to achieve the goals of these...

How effective are export promotion activities in developing countries? What are the channels through which export promotion affects firms' exports, the intensive margin or the extensive margin? Empirical evidence in this respect is scarce. We aim at filling this gap in the literature by...

Information problems involved in trading differentiated goods are a priori acuter than those associated with trading more homogeneous products. The impact of export promotion activities intending to address these problems can be therefore expected to differ across goods with different degree of...