We analyze the impact of remittances on the labor supply of men and women in post-conflict Tajikistan. Individuals from remittance-receiving households are less likely to participate in the labor market and supply fewer hours when they do. The results are robust to different measures of...

We develop a theoretical framework that considers the role played by moral hazard and the diversity of networks and cultures in the choice of hiring channel. In favoritism contexts social networks, and particularly strong ties, are adopted as hiring channels for unskilled jobs and result in wage...

Starting in the mid 1970s, Chile implemented comprehensive structural market reforms. Using manufacturing plant-level data on Chilean firms for years 1980 to 2001, we estimate the role of reforms on efficiency. We analyze aggregate productivity constructed from micro data to find that in the...

Previous empirical research has shown that Mexico's Oportunidades program has succeeded in increasing schooling and improving health of disadvantaged children. This paper studies the program's potential longer-term consequences for the poverty and inequality of these children. It adapts methods...

This paper analyzes the self-selection patterns among Mexican return migrants during the period 1990–2010. To calculate the selection patterns, we nonparametrically estimate the counterfactual wages that the return migrants would have experienced had they never migrated by using the wage...

Recent evidence suggests that aid induces migration. This result is nevertheless not very informative from a policy perspective since what counts in terms of welfare consequences is the composition of migration. In this paper we focus on education and study which of skilled or unskilled...

This paper explores the productivity differential between return migrants (“Sea Turtles”) and non-migrants through a case study of China’s venture capital (VC) industry. I find that even after correcting for selection bias, return venture capitalists are less productive than comparable...

This paper exploits the episode provided by the mass migration from the former Soviet Union to Israel in the 1990s to study the effect high skill immigration on productivity. Using a unique data set on manufacturing firms, I investigate directly whether firms and industries with a higher...