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 nonlinear and non-monotonic relationship between households' accumulated...

For many in Latin America, the increasing participation of China and India in international markets is seen as a looming shadow of two "mighty giants" on the region's manufacturing sector. Are they really mighty giants when it comes to their impact on manufacturing employment? The authors...

In the past decade, conditional cash transfer (CCT) programs have become an important component of social policy in developing countries. While the impacts of these programs have been well researched with respect to their effectiveness to achieve intended outcomes, less is known about their...

Do export promotion agencies impact the probability of non-exporting firms to export? In the last decade many countries have introduced export promotion agencies to support their firms to deal with asymmetric information problems and make feasible additional gains from trade. Some recent studies...

This paper estimates the mobility costs of workers across sectors and regions in a large sample of developing countries. The paper develops a new methodology that uses cross-sectional data only. This is motivated by the fact that panel data typically are not available for most developing...

Changing population age structures are shaping the trajectories of development in many countries, bringing opportunities and challenges. While aging has been a matter of concern for upper-middle and high-income economies, rapid population growth is set to continue in the poorest countries over...

The development of the Internet is often seen as a source of demand for skilled workers and therefore a potential driver of the wage gap between skilled and unskilled workers. This paper focuses on the impact that international trade in online platforms has on the wage gap. Because online trade...

A growing literature aiming at explaining differences across firms in productivity and access to global export markets has focused on the internal organization of firms. This paper contributes to this literature by evaluating the impact of a program that focuses on enhancing competitiveness of...

In the last decade Morocco undertook substantial, if gradual, trade liberalization by reducing tariffs, reforming trade regulations and signing free and preferential trade agreements with several regions and countries, including the United States, Turkey, the European Union and Arab countries....