This thesis is a collection of essays on the effects of trade and capital flows in developing countries. Chapter 1 starts with the observation that institutions - contract enforcement, property rights, investor protection, and the like - have received a great deal of attention in recent years. I...

The first chapter studies Entrepreneurship and the Stigma of Failure. Entrepreneurial activity varies substantially across countries and sectors and appears to be related to the stigma of failure. To understand this phenomenon, I present a multiple-equilibrium model based on endogenous stigma of...

This thesis studies two strategies that households may use to keep their consumption smooth in the face of fluctuations in income and expenses: credit (borrowing and savings) and insurance (state contingent transfers between households). The first chapter asks why insurance among households in...

This dissertation consists of three chapters. The first chapter explores the effect of Wal-Mart expansion on local retail employment. The phenomenal expansion of Wal-Mart provides a clean case for studying the labor-market effects of increased efficiency. I estimate the effect of Wal-Mart entry...

(cont.) left on the table" due to underpricing in the IPO allocation is not capital the firm could have raised; instead, it is the empirical regularity associated with obtaining a high quality aftermarket, high equity valuation, and higher proceeds to the issuer. We examine the principal-agent...

This dissertation consists of three essays in the intersection of International Trade and Institutions. The first essay looks at the effect of trade opening on the efficiency of institutions. I argue that part of the reason why some developing economies have not experienced a boost in economic...

This dissertation consists of three essays on the heterogeneous reactions of firms to shocks, with particular empirical applications to the Chilean economy. The first essay presents a model of heterogeneity in an economy with financial constraints. The main issue in the model is to characterize...

In the first chapter, I demonstrate that banks play a special role in the transmission mechanism of monetary policy, and that this role potentialy explains the excessive sensitivity and asymmetric response of the real economy to small and temporary changes in interest rates. While banks exploit...