We present a model in which the importance of financial intermediation for development can be measured. We generate differences in the quantity of financial intermediation by varying the degree to which loan contracts can be enforced. Economies where contracts are poorly enforced employ less...

We present a model in which the importance of financial intermediation for development can be measured. We generate financial differences by varying the degree to which contracts can be enforced. Economies where enforcement is poor employ less capital and less efficient technologies. Yet,...

We present a model in which the importance of financial intermediation for development can be measured. We generate financial differences by varying the degree to which contracts can be enforced. Economies where enforcement is poor employ less capital and less efficient technologies. Calibrated...

In most developing nations, formal workers tend to be more experienced and educated than informal workers, a fact often interpreted as evidence that low-skill workers face barriers to entry into the formal sector. Yet, there exists little direct evidence that labor markets are segmented in those...

We present a model of economic development where the importance of financial differences caused by limited enforcement can be measured. Economies where enforcement is poor direct less capital to the production sector and employ less efficient technologies. Calibrated simulations reveal that the...

Countries differ markedly with respect to income per capita. These differences cannot be accounted for by differences in factors of production, which means that measured TFP varies significantly across countries. Countries that have a poorly developed financial intermediation sector tend to be...

In most developing nations, formal workers tend to be more experienced, more educated, and earn more than informal workers. These facts are often interpreted as evidence that low-skill workers face barriers to entry into the formal sector. Yet, there exists little direct evidence that such...

We show that the inability of a standardly-calibrated stochastic labor search-and-matching model to account for the observed volatility of unemployment and vacancies extends beyond U.S. data to a set of OECD countries. We also argue that using cross-country data is helpful in evaluating the...

We document sectoral differences in changes in output, hours worked, prices and nominal wages in the US during the Great Depression. We explore whether contractionary monetary shocks combined with different degrees of nominal wage frictions across sectors are consistent with both sectoral as...