This paper aims at quantifying the relative importance of different transmission channels generating the high levels of intergenerational correlations in education, especially in Latin America. A simultaneous equations model is applied to rich survey data from Mexico. The results show that the...

Most researchers focus on the political economy (interest group pressures) approach to analyzing why customs unions are formed, but terms-of-trade effects were also important in formation of the Common Market of the Southern Cone (Mercosur). Terms-of-trade externalities among Mercosur's members...

August 1999 - The results of a modified gravity model suggest that the new wave of regionalism has not boosted intra-bloc trading significantly. Trade liberalization in Latin America did have a positive impact on the imports of bloc members, although MERCOSUR's exports did poorly over the...

We identify maternal behavioral factors associated with birthweight in Bolivia using data from the Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) of 2003. We estimate birthweight as a function of maternal behavior and the child's sex and gestational age. We control for maternal height, ethnicity,...

One problem when estimating a Cobb-Douglas production function with micro data is how to deal with the observations that show positive output but do not use some of the inputs. As the log of zero is not defined one standard procedure is to arbitrarily replace those zero values with "sufficinetly...