Sudden stops in capital flows are a form of financial whiplash that creates instability and crises in the affected economies. Sudden stops in net capital flows trigger current account reversals as countries that were borrowing on net from the rest of the world before the stop can no longer...

The labor force participation of women is lower than the labor force participation of men. This empirical regularity is particularly acute in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC). In terms of labor market productivity and growth potential, these lower participation rates constitute a reserve of...

In this paper, we analyze the impact of Chinese competition on manufacturing firms in El Salvador between 2005 and 2013 using manufacturing survey data and customs transaction data. We find that Chinese import competition in El Salvador has a negative effect on firms employment, total factor...

In this paper, we relate outcomes of El Salvadors local labor markets to their exposure to Chinese import competition. Using annual household surveys for 2000 to 2014, we construct a panel dataset of 61 local labor markets over 15 years to study three sets of outcomes: manufacturing employment,...

This paper analyzes the impact of Mapa- Regalías on efficiency in the execution of public investment projects in Colombia. MapaRegalías is an online platform that displays geo-referenced information and data on royalties coming from the extractives sector. The purpose of the platform is to...

This paper estimates the effects of NAFTA on labor and wages in Mexico using a local labor-markets approach. While NAFTA offered greater export opportunities to Mexican firms that may raise employment, it also opened the door to increased import competition that may dampen employment gains. This...

Trade liberalization affects real-wage inequality through two channels: the distribution of nominal wages across workers and, if the rich and the poor consume different bundles of goods, the distribution of price indices across consumers. I provide a unified framework incorporating both channels...

This paper estimates the effects of school accountability on year-to-year teacher mobility in Chile. An accountability program was introduced between 2012 and 2015, which established sanctions for persistently low-performing schools, including the threat of closure if they failed to improve...

Violations of Tinbergen's Rule and strategic interaction undermine monetary and financial policies significantly in a New Keynesian model with the Bernanke-Gertler accelerator. Welfare costs of risk shocks are large because of efficiency losses and income effects of costly monitoring, but they...

The growth of cultural tourism globally has presented an important opportunity for public investment in tourism to drive economic development in developing countries. With Bolivia's regional disparities in income and opportunity, it is critical to understand the regionally differentiated welfare...