I develop a method to measure and separate the production misallocation caused by failures in factor markets versus financial markets. When I apply the method to rice farming villages in Thailand I find surprisingly little misallocation. Optimal reallocation would increase output in most...

To understand mixed evidence provided by empirical studies for the relationship between the accumulation of public debt and economic growth, it is necessary to consider not only the crowd-out effect of public debt on economic growth but also the growth-enhancing crowd-in effect that cannot be...

Why do the poor have so many economic activities? According to one theory the poor do not specialize because relying on one income source is risky. I test the theory by measuring the response of Thai rice farmers to conditional volatility in the international rice price. Households expecting a...

This paper estimates the causal impact of dismissal costs on capital deepening and productivity exploiting a reform that introduced unjust-dismissal costs in Italy for firms below 15 employees, leaving firing costs unchanged for larger firms. We show that the increase in firing costs induces an...