In this paper, we argue that credit market imperfections impact not only the level of unemployment, but also its persistence. For this purpose, we first develop a theoretical model based on the equilibrium matching framework of Mortensen and Pissarides (1999) and Pissarides (2000) where we...

Credit reporting systems are an important ingredient for financial markets. These systems are based upon the unique identification of borrowers, which is enabled if a compulsory identification system exists in a country. We present evidence derived from difference-in-difference analyses on the...

Information asymmetries are important in theory but difficult to identify in practice. We estimate the empirical importance of adverse selection and moral hazard in a consumer credit market using a new field experiment methodology. We randomized 58,000 direct mail offers issued by a major South...

Information asymmetries are important in theory but difficult to identify in practice. We estimate the empirical importance of adverse selection and moral hazard in a consumer credit market using a new field experiment methodology. We randomized 58,000 direct mail offers issued by a major South...

This paper seeks to contribute to the ongoing controversy on the distributional effects of structural reforms in developing countries. To this end, we set up a small-scale macroeconomic model of a dual economy to capture the transmission mechanisms through which the deregulation of product and...

The aim of this paper is to explain why time use data are essential for analyzing issues of gender equity and the intra-household allocation of resources, for comparing living standards and for estimating the behavioral effects of changes in policy variables. The first step in the exposition is...

What role do community norms play in the diffusion and persistence of new organizational practices? We explore this question through an examination of the widespread practice of wage arrears, the late and non-payment of wages, in Russia during the 1990s. Existing research on wage arrears most...