South Asia has a huge need to create more and better jobs for a growing population especially in the manufacturing industries where it is underperforming as compared to East Asia. The report examines three critical and relatively understudied drivers of competitiveness: -Economies of...

South Asia has a huge need to create more and better jobs for a growing population, especially in the manufacturing industries where it is underperforming as compared to East Asia. The report examines three critical and relatively understudied drivers of competitiveness: economies of...

This paper estimates the impact of informality on firm profits using a new firm-level survey designed specifically for this study. The survey was administered to about 1,200 firms with 50 employees or less in Ecuador's two largest cities, Quito and Guayaquil, plus two main centers of economic...

This paper quantifies the likely benefits of trade and investment liberalization in a small, poor, open economy, using the accession of Honduras to the Dominican Republic-Central American Free Trade Agreement as a case study. The results show that bilateral trade liberalization with the United...

The author investigates the effects of preferential trade agreements (PTAs) on the net foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows of member countries using a comprehensive database of PTAs in a panel setting. He finds that PTA membership is associated with a positive change in net FDI inflows, and...

The author investigates the effects of preferential trade agreements (PTAs) on bilateral trade flows using a comprehensive database of PTAs in force and a detailed matrix of world trade. He shows that total trade between PTA partners is a poor proxy for preferential trade (trade in tariff lines...

This paper contributes to the analysis of spatial poverty in Ecuador by deepening the understanding of the constraints faced by the poor in the country through an investigation of the role of portable characteristics (human capital) and geography in explaining welfare. At the national level, the...

The National School for Professional Technology Education (CONALEP) is Mexico's largest and oldest technical education system. CONALEP serves low-income students at the upper-secondary school level in Mexico. The labor market performance of CONALEP graduates has been evaluated four times in the...

Apparel is the largest labor-intensive manufacturing industry in South Asia, and is a major employer of women. Although South Asia's apparel sector benefits from many of the same favorable conditions as East Asia's, performance in South Asian apparel remains well below that of East Asia. The...

The U-shape theory argues that at early stages of development, countries experience a reduction in the female labor force participation, eventually followed by a recovery. In Morocco, female labor force participation is now lower than it was two decades ago due to several factors that are...