This paper links employment dynamics to the business cycle in order to examine the voluntary nature of self-employment in Argentina. Our results suggest that the transition to self-employment is more common during recessions and that the likelihood of becoming self-employed increases with the...

This paper studies empirically the relationship between trade policy and individual income risk faced by workers. The analysis proceeds in three steps. First, longitudinal data on workers are used to estimate time-varying individual income risk parameters in various manufacturing sectors. The...

There is a common perception that low productivity or low growth is due to what can be called an `innovation shortfall,` usually identified as a low rate of investment in research and development (RD) compared with some high-innovation countries. The usual reaction to this perceived problem is...

This paper applies recent advances in the study of labor market dynamics to a representative developing country with a large unregulated of informal sector. It confirms the relevance of the recent mainstream models and debates surrounding gross worker flows to the developing country context, and...

This paper examines the adjustment of developing country labor markets to macroeconomic shocks. It models as having two sectors: a formal salaried (tradable) sector that may or may not be affected by union or legislation induced wage rigidities, and an informal (nontradable) self-employment...

This paper employs regression discontinuity methods to identify the effect of formality on Brazilian micro-firm performance. The SIMPLES program introduced in November 1996 consolidated multiple taxes and social security contributions into a single payment and reduced taxes for eligible small...

This paper studies gross worker flows to explain the rising informality in Brazilian metropolitan labor markets from 1983-2002. This period covers two economic cycles, several stabilization plans, a far-reaching trade liberalization, and changes in labor legislation through the Constitutional...

This paper discusses a set of statistics for examining and comparing labor market dynamics based on the estimation of continuous time Markov transition processes. It then uses these to establish stylized facts about dynamic patterns of movement using panel data from Argentina, Brazil and Mexico....

This paper analyzes the cyclical properties of worker flows in Brazil and Mexico, two important developing countries with large unregulated or informal" sectors. It generates three stylized facts that are critical to the accurate modeling of the sector and which suggest the need to rethink the...

This paper examines the adjustment of developing country labor markets to macroeconomic shocks. It models a two sector labor market: a formal salaried (tradable) sector that may or may not be affected by union or legislation induced wage rigidities, and an unregulated (nontradable)...