The gravity model has provided a tractable empirical framework to account for bilateral flows not only of manufactured goods, as in the case of merchandise trade, but also of financial flows. In particular, recent literature has emphasized the role of information costs in preventing larger...

The gravity model has provided a tractable empirical framework to account for bilateral flows not only of manufactured goods, as in the case of merchandise trade, but also of financial flows. In particular, recent literature has emphasized the role of information costs in preventing larger...

We use a panel of manufacturing plants from Colombia to analyze how the rise in payroll tax rates over the 1980?s and 1990?s affected the labor market. Our estimates indicate that formal wages fall by between 1.4% and 2.3% as a result of a 10% rise in payroll taxes. This...

In this paper, we analyze employment and capital adjustments using a panel of plants from Colombia. We allow for nonlinear adjustment of employment to reflect not only adjustment costs of labor but also adjustment costs of capital, and vice-versa. Using data from the Annual Manufacturing Survey,...

We use plant output and input prices to decompose the profit margin into four parts: productivity, demand shocks, mark-ups and input costs. We find that each of these market fundamentals are important in explaining plant exit. We then use variation across sectors in tariff changes after the...

This paper presents a tractable formalization and an empirical investigation of the quality-complementarity hypothesis, the hypothesis that input quality and plant productivity are complementary in generating output quality. We embed this complementarity in a general-equilibrium trade model with...

The gravity model has provided a tractable empirical framework to account for bilateral flows not only of manufactured goods, as in the case of merchandise trade, but also of financial flows. In particular, recent literature has emphasized the role of information costs in preventing larger...

We assess the impact, on workforce contract composition, employment adjustment dynamics and productivity, of a combination of changes in the Colombian labor legislation which increased firm’s ability of using contracts of a temporary nature, and posterior changes that increased the costs...

It is clear that in the transition out of the COVID-19 crisis in Colombia there will be great need for formal job creation. One source that has been widely discussed in policy circles is strengthening linkages of Colombian firms with Global Value Chains (GVCs). Another source that has received...

This paper investigates the impacts of the economic shock caused by the COVID-19 pandemic on the employment of different types of workers in developing countries. Employment outcomes are taken from a set of high-frequency phone surveys conducted by the World Bank and National Statistics Offices...