This paper exploits unique features of a recently introduced tariff schedule for natural gas in Buenos Aires to estimate the short-run impact of price shocks on residential energy utilization. The schedule induces a non-linear and nonmonotonic relationship between households’ accumulated...

Many developing countries have adopted the market approach for expanding the supply of child care, but little is known about the economic behavior of independent providers. This paper draws on uniquely rich administrative data on child care centers and their inputs from São Paulo to examine the...

Rauch (1999) introduced a product classification scheme that has since been widely used to empirically identify differentiated goods. Using firm-level data on export unit values, we provide direct evidence that this classification is well suited for capturing quality differentiation.

What drives export quality? Using firm-level data from Portugal on exports by product and destination market, we find that free-on-board unit values increase systematically with distance, and tend to be higher in shipments to richer nations. These relationships reflect not only the selection of...

It is well known that cultural links between countries increase bilateral trade. In this paper we exploit Portuguese firm-level data on exports to 199 destinations to investigate the questions: How? Do cultural links increase the number of exporters, or the shipments per exporter? What is the...

We develop a two-country, multi-sector model of oligopoly in which unionised and non-unionised sectors interact in general equilibrium. The model is used to study the impact of trade liberalisation, deunionisation and firm entry on wages in unionised and non-unionised sectors, and on welfare. We...