This paper explores, both formally and empirically, the political accountability mechanisms that lie behind the varying levels of public corruption and of effective governance taking place across nations. The first section develops a principal-agent model in which good governance is a function...

This paper shows that the factors affecting labor supply have been key determinants of the changes in employment, unemployment, and income differentials in Latin America in the 1990s. The two main forces driving labor supply in the region have been demographics and education.

Abundant empirical evidence links well-functioning institutions and good governance to better economic and social outcomes. It is thus an important challenge to determine which conjunction of factors produces better institutions. Along this line, the objective of this paper is twofold. First, it...

This paper takes advantage of several reforms that provide time and cross sectional variation to identify the effects of unemployment insurance and severance payments on the duration of unemployment and on the separation probability in Argentina. Administrative data permits analysis of the...

The aim of this paper is to provide empirical evidence on the link between foreign aid and income inequality for the period 1973-2002. Since simple cross-country regressions cannot be taken as true time series findings, we also focus on dynamic panel data techniques, which allow accounting for...

In this paper we estimate the early effect of the European Monetary Union (EMU) on trade. We use a panel data set that includes the most recent information on bilateral trade for 22 developed countries from 1992 through 2002. During this period 12 European countries formally entered into a...

This document is a synthesis of the region's most pertinent top priorities, of achievements undergone during recent years, and of the challenges and opportunities the region will face in the near future.Abstract: Los países pertenecientes a la región andina han realizado, durante los últimos...

The paper is concerned with the high protection cum high growth experience in Brazil until the second half of the 1980s and its crisis. The paper is structured in four sections. The first section is a summary of the arguments presented in the following three sections of the paper. Section II...

In this working paper the authors present evidence on the reliability of propensity score matching to estimate the bias associated with the effect of treatment on the treated, exploiting the availability of experimental data from a Mexican antipoverty program (PROGRESA: Programa de Educación,...

A casual observer would be forgiven for concluding that these are both the best and the worst of times for eliminating barriers to international trade and investment. On the plus side, developed countries are firmly committed to the trade liberalization agenda.Abstract: A un observador fortuito...