We examine gender differences in career progression and promotions in central banking, a stereotypical male-dominated occupation, using confidential anonymized personnel data from the European Central Bank (ECB) during the period 2003-2017. A wage gap emerges between men and women within a few...

In closed or open economy models with complete markets, targeting core inflation enables monetary policy to maximize welfare by replicating the flexible price equilibrium. We analyze this result in the context of developing economies, where a large proportion of households are credit constrained...

In models with complete markets, targeting core inflation enables monetary policy to maximize welfare by replicating the flexible price equilibrium. In this paper, we develop a twosector two-good closed economy new Keynesian model to study the optimal choice of price index in markets with...

Central banks around the world are exploring and in some cases even piloting Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs). CBDCs promise to realize a broad range of new capabilities, including direct government disbursements to citizens, frictionless consumer payment and money-transfer systems, and a...

Leaks are pervasive in politics. Hence, many committees that nominally operate under secrecy de facto operate under the threat that information might be passed on to outsiders. We study theoretically and experimentally how this possibility affects the behavior of committee members and the...

We develop a general equilibrium model that highlights the trade-offs between physical and digital forms of retail central bank money. The key differences between cash and central bank digital currency (CBDC) include transaction efficiency, possibilities for tax evasion, and, potentially,...

This paper analyzes whether the propensity to secede by subnational regions responds mostly to differences in income per capita or to distinct identities. We explore this question in a quantitative political economy model where people's willingness to finance a public good depends on their...

This study assesses if nudges in the form of informational videos sent via WhatsApp are effective in boosting take-up rates among vulnerable populations, specifically in the context of a regularization program for Venezuelan forced migrants in Colombia. The study randomly assigned 1,375 eligible...

How does easing the economic integration of forced migrants affect native voting behaviors in the Global South? This paper assesses how the regularization of half a million Venezuelan forced migrants affected the electoral choices of Colombian natives by comparing election results in...

Governments do not have perfect information regarding the priorities and the needs of different groups in the economy. This lack of knowledge opens the door for different groups to lobby the government in order to receive the government's support. We set up a model of hierarchical contests and...