How can governments and companies be jointly empowered to have a positive impact on the sustainable development goals? The current economic system is largely geared towards increasing economic growth. But this could come at the expense of rising social inequality and environmental...

The extensive sorting of more talented teachers into the most advantaged schools contributes to the wide socioeconomic achievement gaps in Latin America. The Chilean Pedagogical Excellence Assignment (AEP, for its Spanish acronym) is a unique program in the region that provides monetary...

Interventions designed to support small and medium enterprises (SMEs) are popular among policy makers, given the role SMEs play in job creation around the world. Business support interventions in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) are often based on the assumption that market failures and...

We analyse the risk of mafia capture of firms operating in the legal economy. Specifically, we study the relationship between firm performance and mafia infiltration. To overcome possible endogeneity concerns we exploit the abrupt drop in revenues caused by the (unexpected) Covid-19 related...

We study the impact of the Brexit referendum on Irish exporters to the UK. The referendum triggered a sharp devaluation of the British pound vis-a-vis the euro and led to considerable uncertainty about future trade relations between the UK and the EU. Using administrative data on the universe of...

The privatisation policy pursued in the UK by Mrs Thatcher's government (1979-1990) and subsequently by Mr Major's government (1990-1997) was the largest experiment in public divestitures among capitalist economies. It had a deep impact on economic policy-making world wide, and was vastly...

We analyze shocks to productivity, collateral constraint (credit shock), firm operation, and labor disutility in a model of firm dynamics with entry and exit. Shocks to firm operation and labor disutility capture COVID-19 lockdowns. Compared to the productivity shock, the credit and the lockdown...