In many countries safety nets consist predominantly of universal subsidies on food and fuel. A key question for policy makers willing to shift to targeted safety nets is under what conditions middle-class citizens would be supportive of redistributive programs. Results from a behavioral...

This paper documents an inverse U-shape in the evolution of wage inequality in Latin America since 1995, with a sharp reduction starting in 2002. The Gini coefficient of wages increased from 42 to 44 between 1995 and 2002 and declined to 39 by 2015. Between 2002 and 2015, the 90/10 log hourly...

Does increased import competition lead to higher returns to skill within an industry and, therefore, to greater incentives for skill acquisition? Does it also induce skill upgrading by the industry?s existing workforce? To answer these questions, this paper follows individual workers across...

Fixed costs associated with learning about demand and setting up distribution networks are expected to be lower when there are more potential contacts in the destination market, suggesting a greater probability of market entry and larger export revenues. The authors match historically-determined...

This paper examines whether export participation matters for job training. The paper draws on longitudinal worker-firm data for Brazilian manufacturing, linked with detailed records on training activity from the main provider. The analysis uses industry-specific exchange rate movements to...

This paper analyzes the incentives to labor supply faced by families, particularly mothers, with young children in the context of a recently introduced fertility promotion benefit in Poland. The paper is based on an adapted version of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development's...

The actual distribution of world income across countries is extremely unequal, much higher than the within country inequality faced by most countries. The question studied in this paper is: How do international policies on aid, trade, and factor movements affect the international distribution of...

A vast literature shows the importance of socioemotional skills in earnings and employment, but whether they matter in getting hired remains unanswered. This study seeks to address this question and further investigates whether socioemotional skill signals in job applicants' resumes have the...

This paper uses data from the Integrated Values Survey, the Life in Transition Survey, and the Russia Longitudinal Monitoring Survey to analyze the relation between age and subjective well-being in the Europe and Central Asia region. Although the results generally confirm the findings of...

The Russian Federation's population has been declining since 1992, but recently the decline appears to be over. Although fertility has risen since the 2007 introduction of the family policy package, which focused on stimulating second and higher-order births, total fertility rates still remain...