What determines the aggregate and distributional effects of new transportation infrastructure? One key overlooked channel is the role that infrastructure policy plays in changing the incentives of firms to enter, exit, and grow--in turn generating endogenous changes in local productivity. In...

Limited access to credit has been identified as a major constraint to sustainable municipal development, but empirical evidence on the effectiveness of credit operations remains inconclusive. This paper evaluates the impact of federal government guaranteed loans on public expenditures. Using...

Cyberattacks have risen to become one of the most critical global risks. Despite increasing investments to combat cyberattacks, there remains a significant, often unnoticed vulnerability: employees. Previous literature reveals that over two-thirds of cyberattacks within organizations result from...

This paper investigates housing discrimination in Ecuadors rental market against women- led and gay male and lesbian (WGL) families, compared to male-led and heterosexual families. Discrimination in housing markets is a critical quality-of-life issue because it exacerbates social disparities by...

This paper examines a large-scale randomized evaluation of the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) program in 531 rural primary schools, as implemented by the Peruvian government starting in 2009. We use administrative and survey data on academic achievement and grade progression through 2019 to...

Using a multilevel analysis and the new Harmonized Latin American Innovation Surveys Database (or LAIS database) augmented with indicators from the U.S. Census Bureau's Survey of Business Owners (SBO) and the World Banks World Integrated Trade Solution (WITS), this paper presents estimates of...

Over 30 percent of female workers are self-employed across Latin America, relying on this mode of work for subsistence. Self-employment in the region is regularly marked by the absence of health insurance and lack of pension benefits. Despite the aspirations of many women to gain access to these...

Political trust is foundational to democratic legitimacy, representative governance, and the provision of effective public policy. Various shocks can influence this trust, steering countries onto positive or negative trajectories. This study examines whether natural disasters can impact general...

This study analyzes the firm-level impacts of temporary safeguard import tariffs implemented in Ecuador from 2015 to 2017. Employing a difference-in-differences methodology, we explore the policy's effects on a unique dataset combining firm- and product-level data. We focus on the direct effects...

This paper investigates how a country's economic complexity influences its sovereign yield spread with respect to the United States. Notably, a one-unit increase in the Economic Complexity Index is associated with a reduction of about 87 basis points in the 10-year yield spread. However, this...