This paper estimates worker and firm impacts of foreign shocks, and the income support provided by assistance programs. It exploits quasi-experimental variation in firms' foreign demand resulting from the global financial crisis, using employer-employee data for Brazil in 2004-2017, linked with...

This paper documents an inverse U-shape in the evolution of wage inequality in Latin America since 1995, with a sharp reduction starting in 2002. The Gini coefficient of wages increased from 42 to 44 between 1995 and 2002 and declined to 39 by 2015. Between 2002 and 2015, the 90/10 log hourly...

Informality, measured as the share of the employed who do not have access to social security, is high in Lebanon and the Syrian Arab Republic. This paper uses new data from the 2010 Lebanon and Syria matched employer-employee surveys, which include modules that directly test for ability (Raven's...