Firms market power may exacerbate income inequality. We investigate this relationship among firms in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC), where this phenomenon remains understudied. We use firm-level data for formal firms in 16 countries in LAC and 31 peer economies with similar levels of GDP...

The relationship between firms and inequality has been a focus of recent attention globally. This chapter summarizes basic facts about this relationship for Latin America. Unlike advanced economies where superstar firm growth has prompted concerns over disproportionate income growth at the top,...

Bogota is unique in recording and reporting the socioeconomic status of COVID-19 patients. As others in Latin America and Asia, the city imposed a blanket lockdown before contagion picked up in early 2020 and kept it in place for six months. We document that, during that period, being...

This paper reviews the process of job creation and destruction across a sample of 16 industrial and emerging economies over the past decade. It exploits a harmonized firm-level data set drawn from business registers and enterprise census data. The paper assesses the importance of technological...

This paper analyzes the process of creative destruction across 24 countries and 2-digit industries. This approach harmonizes firm level data across countries, enabling international comparisons and the identification of country-specific as opposed to sectoral and time effects factors. All...

It is clear that in the transition out of the COVID-19 crisis in Colombia there will be great need for formal job creation. One source that has been widely discussed in policy circles is strengthening linkages of Colombian firms with Global Value Chains (GVCs). Another source that has received...

This paper examines the welfare impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, using harmonized data from 343 high-frequency phone surveys conducted in 80 economies during 2020 and 2021, representing more than 2.5 billion people. The analysis focuses on the scarring effects of the initial losses of...

Using official employment surveys for 45 advanced economies and Latin American countries, this paper shows that the positive cross-country correlation between business size and GDP per capita is tighter than previously found using firm-level datasets and finds a close negative business size-Gini...

Migration facilitates the flow of information between countries, thereby reducing informational frictions that potentially hamper cross-country financial flows. Using a gravity model, migration is found to be highly correlated with financial flows from the migrant's host country to her home...

This paper studies the effects of an oversubscribed job-training program on skills and labor-market outcomes using both survey and administrative data. Overall, vocational training improves labor-market outcomes, particularly by increasing formal employment. A second round of randomization...