With more than 70 percent of its population living in cities, Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) is among the most urbanized regions in the world. Yet, although its cities are, on average, more productive than those elsewhere in the world, their productivity lags that of North American and...

We develop and estimate a model of child care markets that endogenizes both demand and supply. On the demand side, families with a child make consumption, labor supply, and child-care decisions within a static, unitary household model. On the supply side, child care providers make entry, price,...

Free college proposals have become increasingly popular in many countries. To evaluate their potential effects, this paper develops and estimates a dynamic model of college enrollment, performance, and graduation. A central piece of the model, student effort has a direct effect on class...

This paper studies the dynamic sorting of workers prior to labor market entry that leads to skill differences across cities of different sizes, as well as its consequences on the estimation of agglomeration effects. Using rich administrative data for young, college-educated workers in Colombia,...

Latin America and the Caribbean has lost not decades but a century of growth due to its inability to learn-to identify, adapt, and implement the new technologies emerging since the Second Industrial Revolution. Superstars like Argentina, Chile, and Uruguay fell behind peers like France and...