This paper discusses contributions that industrial organization economists have made to our understanding of energy markets and environmental regulation. We emphasize the substantive contributions of recent papers while also highlighting how this literature has adopted and sometimes augmented...

Energy security is the ability of households, businesses, and government to accommodate disruptions in supply in energy markets. This survey considers the economic dimensions of energy security, political and other non-economic security concerns and discusses policy approaches that could enhance...

Strategies based on growth and inequality reduction require a long-run horizon, and this paper therefore argues that those strategies need to be complemented by poverty alleviation programs. With regards to such programs, informality in Latin America and the Caribbean is a primary obstacle to...

This paper summarizes the main lessons learned from Law and Employment: Lessons from Latin America and the Caribbean, a forthcoming NBER book. It places Latin American economies and economic policies in a world context. The paper quantifies the cost of regulation in Latin America and OECD Europe...

This paper discusses theoretical and practical issues related to long-term care (LTC) services in Latin America. Demand for these services will rise as the region undergoes a swift demographic transition from its currently young population to a rapidly aging one, especially since the region's...

This study constructs a new data set on unemployment rates in Latin America and the Caribbean and then explores the determinants of unemployment. We compare different countries, finding that unemployment is influenced by the size of the rural population and that the effects of government...

This paper examines gender inequality focusing on two critical spheres in which gender inequality is generated: education and work. Our objective is to provide a current snapshot of gender inequality across key indicators as well as a dynamic perspective that highlights successes and failures....

Education is a crucial asset for a country's economic prospects and for its inhabitants. In addition to its direct impact on growth via the accumulation of human capital, it is a critical ingredient in producing an informed citizenry, enhancing their ability to obtain and exert human and...

I make three points relating to the transition from fossil fuels to non-carbon energy. One is that the economic cost of moving from fossil fuels to renewable energy in electricity generation is very low, and probably lower than many estimates of the economic benefits from this change. The second...