We construct a search model where sellers post prices and produce goods of unknown quality. A match reveals the quality of the seller. Buyers rate sellers based on quality. We show that unrated sellers charge a low price to attract buyers and that highly rated sellers post a high price and sell...

Pricing strategies may include the advertising of meeting-the-competition clauses (MCCs). We show in a specific spatial model scenario with differently informed consumers that MCCs primarily serve as a device to facilitate collusion instead of allowing for price discrimination between these...

The paper studies the impact of homophily on the optimal strategies of a monopolist, whose marketing campaign of new product relies on a word of mouth communication. Homophily is a tendency of people to interact more with those who are similar to them. In the model there are two types of...

Among fast growing developing countries, India is distinctive for the role of the service sector. However, sceptics have raised doubts about both the quality and sustainability of the increase in service sector activity and its implications for economic development. Using National Accounts...

The positive association between the service sector share of output and per capita income is one of the best-known regularities in all of growth and development economics. Yet there is less than complete agreement on the nature of that association. Here we identify two waves of service sector...

We consider the relationship between tourism and economic growth for Latin American countries since 1985 until 1998. The analysis proposed is based on a panel data approach and the Arellano-Bond estimator for dynamic panels. We obtain estimates of the relationship between economic growth and...

The relationship between firms and inequality has been a focus of recent attention globally. This chapter summarizes basic facts about this relationship for Latin America. Unlike advanced economies where superstar firm growth has prompted concerns over disproportionate income growth at the top,...

Climate change is an existential threat to the world economy, with complex, evolving and nonlinear dynamics that remain a source of great uncertainty. There is a bourgeoning literature on the economic impact of climate change, but research on how climate change affects sovereign risks is...

Using establishment-level data from the World Bank Enterprise Survey, we assess the market power of exporting firms across 16 countries in Latin America. Leveraging information on export destinations, as well as exchange rate and price data, we construct exchange rate-driven shocks to the...

Latin American and Caribbean countries have historically been known for their rates of land inequality, highest in the world. However, these countries also exhibit a high degree of heterogeneity in their patterns of land concentration and average farm sizes. These cross-country differences play...