We document a large decrease in earnings inequality in Brazil between 1996 and 2012.Using administrative linked employer-employee data, we fit high-dimensional worker and firm fixed effects models to understand the sources of this decrease. Firm effects account for40 percent of the total...

A key feature of developing economies is that wages in agriculture are significantlybelow those of other sectors. Using Brazilian household surveys and administrativepanel data, I use information on workers who switch sectors to decompose the driversof this gap. I find that most of the gap is...

We document that past highly inflationary episodes are often characterized by a steeper inflationslack relationship. We show that model-generated data from a standard small Dynamic Stochastic General Equilibrium (DSGE) model can replicate this empirical finding when estimated with different...

We update the widely used banking crises database by Laeven and Valencia (2008, 2010) with new information on recent and ongoing crises, including updated information on policy responses and outcomes (i.e. fiscal costs, output losses, and increases in public debt). We also update our dating of...

We consider the optimality of various institutional arrangements for agencies that conduct macro-prudential regulation and monetary policy. When a central bank is in charge of price and financial stability, a new time inconsistency problem may arise. Ex-ante, the central bank chooses the...

This paper updates the database on systemic banking crises presented in Laeven and Valencia (2008, 2013). Drawing on 151 systemic banking crises episodes around the globe during 1970-2017, the database includes information on crisis dates, policy responses to resolve banking crises, and the...

The policy response to the COVID-19 shock included regulatory easing across many jurisdictions to facilitate the flow of credit to the economy and mitigate a further ampli-fication of the shock through tighter financial conditions. Using an intraday event study,this paper examines how stock...

We examine how firm and country heterogeneity shape the response of corporate investment in emerging markets to changes in global interest rates and volatility. We test for the presence of (i) a financing channel originating from changes in the costs of external borrowing and (ii) a real options...

A long-standing conjecture in macroeconomics is that recent declines in exchange rate pass-through are in part due to improved monetary policy performance. In a large sample of emerging and advanced economies, we find evidence of a strong link between exchange rate pass-through to consumer...

A large share of cross-country differences in productivity is explained by differences in agricultural productivity. Using a combination of sub-national agricultural statistics and geospatial datasets on crop-specific potential yields, we study the main drivers of this variation from a...