This study constructs a new data set on unemployment rates in Latin America and the Caribbean and then explores the determinants of unemployment. We compare different countries, finding that unemployment is influenced by the size of the rural population and that the effects of government...

We estimate the causal effects of a shift in the future expected exchange rate of a local currency against the US dollar on a representative sample of firms in a small open economy. We survey a nationally representative sample of firms and provide the one-year-ahead nominal exchange rate...

This paper challenges the conventional view according to which disinflations in LAC-even from low and moderate peaks-have been carried out at no cost to output. After suggesting a new methodology that allows for long-lived effects and inflation inertia when measuring costs of disinflations,...

Government intervention in the construction sector as a way to boost the economy has been a constant in Colombia for the past 90 years. This paper explicitly tests the impact of the most recent of such interventions: a subsidy to the mortgage interest rate. The results show that the subsidy...

Based on the counting of Help-wanted advertisements in print newspapers, we build national vacancy indexes and vacancy rates for Colombia for the period 1976 - 2012. The result is the first dataset capturing the evolution of vacancies for Colombia and the first one covering such a long period...

We estimate the labor market power of over 13,000 manufacturing establishments across 82 low and middle-income countries around the world. Within local labor markets, larger and more productive firms have higher wage markdowns and pay lower wages. Labor market power across countries exhibits a...

Using establishment-level data from the World Bank Enterprise Survey, we assess the market power of exporting firms across 16 countries in Latin America. Leveraging information on export destinations, as well as exchange rate and price data, we construct exchange rate-driven shocks to the...

This paper develops a new method for estimating production-function parameters that can be applied in differentiated-product industries with endogenous quality and variety choice. We take advantage of data on physical quantities of outputs and inputs from the Colombian manufacturing survey,...

How much can employers in low and middle-income countries suppress wages below marginal productivity? Using plant and customs data from Colombia, we exploit pre- determined variation across plants in sales export destination combined with variation in exchange rates to generate plant-specific...