We present two case studies in which coastal vulnerability modeling was used to quantify the role those coastal ecosystems play in reducing risk to coastal communities now and with future sealevel rise. These analyses were used to inform post-disaster reconstruction and coastal resilience...

We investigate how the presence of physical bank branches moderates financial technology diffusion. Our identification strategy uses services suspensions caused by criminal groups that perform hit-and-run raids exploding branch facilities and rendering them inoperable for months. We show that...

How to keep water and land stress within planetary boundaries is a major challenge for sustainable development in Latin American countries. Using an environmentally extended global multi-regional input-output analysis (GMRIO) approach, this study simulates future land and water demand for...

The Bolivian government fostered an electricity cost supporting scheme to attenuate the effect of the nationwide full lockdown on domestic consumption during the COVID-19 pandemic. This paper evaluates its effect on the levels of energy consumption during lockdown, and the monetary savings it...

Governments can issue public debt for both good and bad reasons. The former include intertemporal tax smoothing, fiscal stimulus, and asset management. In contrast, the bad reasons, which generate higher indebtedness, are mainly associated with political cycles, rent capture, intergenerational...

How does exposure to soap operas with LGBTIQ+ characters affect attitudes toward the LGBTIQ+ community? To answer this question, we construct a novel database of 175 telenovelas (soap operas) with LGBTIQ+ characters airing in 14 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean between 2002 and 2019....

The Value-Added Tax (VAT) is the most prevalent consumption tax globally, yet it is frequently deemed highly regressive. To address this, we propose a Personalized VAT (PVAT) devised in conjunction with a distributional policy. We aim to achieve three objectives: increase revenue collection,...

We contribute to understanding the challenges for estimating the size of the LGBTQ+ population and discriminatory sentiment against it by surveying 10,003 individuals, whom we randomize into a direct question or an Item Count Technique (ICT) elicitation group. The fractions of the population...

We develop a quantitative theory of prices in firm-to-firm trade with bilateral negotiations and two-sided market power. Markups reflect oligopoly and oligopsony forces, with relative bargaining power as weight. Cost pass-through elasticities into import prices can be incomplete or complete,...