We study the effects of a social security reform in a large overlapping generations model where markets are incomplete and households face uninsurable idiosyncratic income shocks. We depart from the previous literature by assuming that, because of lack of commitment in the credit market, the...

We study the relation between credit conditions, misallocation of resources, and total factor productivity (TFP) using sectoral data from Mexican manufacturing industries between 2003 and 2010. Our analysis uses a theory-based framework to account for TFP changes in the Mexican manufacturing...

In the last two decades, the Peruvian economy exhibited rapid growth. Moreover, the composition of the labor force improved in terms of education and experience, two variables which are typically associated to higher human capital. The average worker in 2012 had a higher level of education and...

We build a small open economy, real business cycle model with labor market frictions to evaluate the role of employment protection in shaping business cycles in emerging economies. The model features matching frictions and an endogenous selection effect by which inefficient jobs are destroyed in...

Financial crises in emerging economies are accompanied by a large fall in total factor productivity. We explore the role of financial frictions in exacerbating the misallocation of resources and explaining this drop in TFP. We build a two-sector model of a small open economy with a working...

Abstract: This paper uses an overlapping generations model with endogenous fertility choices to analyze the quantitative costs and benefits of subsidizing higher education, paying particular attention to the interaction between such policy and the sustainability of the social security system....

The standard argument says that in the presence of positive spillovers foreign direct investment should be promoted and subsidized. In contrast, this paper claims that the very existence of spillovers may require temporarily restricting FDI. Our argument is based on two features of spillovers:...