Non-compliance of firms with tax regulations is a major constraint on state capacity in developing countries. We focus on an arguably under-appreciated dimension of non-compliance: under-reporting of wages by formal firms to evade payroll taxes. We develop a simple partial-equilibrium model of...

We analyze the outcomes of 332 cases from a labor court in Mexico in which a judge awarded money to a plaintiff who claimed to have been fired by a firm without cause. The judgments were enforced in only 40% of the cases. A plaintiff may try to enforce a judgment by petitioning the court to...

This paper evaluates the impact of the Bono Trabajador Activo, a training voucher program in Chile, on workers' labor market outcomes. Using detailed administrative datasets of the National Employment Service and the Unemployment Insurance System, we apply difference-in-difference and IV...

This paper studies technology adoption in a cluster of soccer-ball producers in Sialkot, Pakistan. We invented a new cutting technology that reduces waste of the primary raw material and gave the technology to a random subset of producers. Despite the arguably unambiguous net benefits of the...

In principle, firms in developing countries benefit from the fact that advanced technologies and products have already been developed in industrialized countries and can simply be adopted, a process often referred to as industrial upgrading. But for many firms this advantage remains elusive....

This study examines the effect of a tightening of the U.S. air-quality standard for lead in 2009 on the relocation of battery recycling to Mexico and on infant health in Mexico. In the U.S., airborne lead dropped sharply near affected plants, most of which were battery-recycling plants. Exports...

This paper develops a new method for estimating production-function parameters that can be applied in differentiated-product industries with endogenous quality and variety choice. We take advantage of data on physical quantities of outputs and inputs from the Colombian manufacturing survey,...