Agriculture can serve as an important engine for economic growth in developing countries, yet yields in these countries have lagged far behind those in developed countries for decades. One potential mechanism for increasing yields is the use of improved agricultural technologies, such as...

Over 755 million adults worldwide are unable to read and write in any language. Yet the widespread introduction of information and communication technology offers new opportunities to provide standardized distance education to underserved illiterate populations in both developed and developing...

The explosion in inequality since 1980 has quashed hopes that mature economic development would generate more equitable economic and social conditions. Although inequality is receiving increasing attention from academics and politicians, the focus has been mostly on income and wealth. This...

The terms window shopping and showrooming refer to the activity in which potential buyers visit a brick-and-mortar store to examine a product but end up either not buying it or buying the product from an online retailer. This paper analyzes potential buyers who differ in their preference for...

This paper surveys a variety of topics related to network economics. Topics covered include: consumer demand under network effects, compatibility decisions and standardization, technology advances in network industries, two-sided markets, information networks and intellectual property, and...

This paper shows that the evolution of the level of Mexico real and real per capita output between 1895 and 2008 can be adequately described through a trendstationary model, affected by 4 structural breaks, which occurred at dates that seem to coincide with domestic institutional arrangements,...

During the last years, Mexico has registered relatively large output falls. The business cycle accounting method of Chari, Kehoe and McGrattan (2007) is applied to the two most recent recessions in Mexico (including the 'Tequila crisis') in order to understand what are the most important wedges...

In this paper, I document the existence of unconditional convergence in labor productivity across Mexican states in three-digit manufacturing industries. The rate of convergence for the period 1988-2018 is 1.18% per year. However, this result does not hold at the aggregate level: I find no...

This document presents an alternative to measure informal economic activity at the municipal level for the 2013-2020 period in Mexico. Using satellite images of nightlight and microdata from the 2019 Economic Census, the formal and informal Value Added at the municipal level is estimated using a...

This paper studies the behavior of investment during demographic transitions. In particular, I focus on the period where the working age to population ratio reaches its maximum, namely the demographic window. I document that in Europe, Asia, and Oceania investment rates are higher 15 years...