Exporters differ considerably in terms of export-market participation over time and employment size. But this marked diversity among exporters is not reflected in their workforce composition regarding commonly observed worker skills or occupations. Using Brazilian linked employer-employee data,...

We explore how financial constraints distort the entry decisions among otherwise productive entrepreneurs and limit growth of promising young firms. A model of liquidity-constrained entrepreneurs suggests that the easing of credit constraints can induce more entry of firms with greater long-run...

New firms do not yet have employees who can aid recruiting by referrals, but entrepreneurs can recruit workers they know to their startups--in effect making their own referrals. We consider new firms in Brazil's formal sector founded between 2002 and 2014, for which at least one founding owner...

"Using a comprehensive linked employer-employee database from Brazil for the period 1995-2001, we are able for the first time to compare firms founded as employee spinoffs to new firms without parents and to diversification ventures of existing firms entering a new industry. Employee spinoffs...