This paper examines the effect of changes in the real exchange rate on skill upgrading in the case of Chile. Using plant-level data from the manufacturing sector we find that a real depreciation increases the share of skilled workers in the total wage bill in exporters but not in non-exporters....

The increasing importance of China in the world trade raises important questions on its impact on importing countries. This paper studies how import competition from China has affected wages in the Chilean Manufacturing Industry. Using plant-level data for the period 1996-2005, we find that...

We use detailed Chilean plant-level data from 1990 to 2000 to study the impact of Chinese import competition in manufacturing industries. We study whether China’s imports have been associated with a downsizing of manufacturing plants or whether firms have escaped Chinese competition through...

This paper studies the relationship among exports, productivity and technological innovation for Chilean manufacturing plants. Firstly, we address the causality between exporting and plant productivity. Our results, consistently with most of the evidence for other economies, suggest that only...

In this paper we study total factor productivity (TFP) catching-up using 20 years of plant-level data for Chilean manufacturing. The paper addresses two key issues: First, we analyze whether there is evidence that low productivity plants experience larger TFP growth than those closer to the...

In this paper we estimate the exchange rate pass-through (ERPT) into disaggregated import price data at monthly frequency. We work with import prices both at the border and at the wholesale level, and our results are consistent with the idea of a high ERPT— complete in the long-run—which has...

This paper evaluates the impact of recent cost shocks (i.e. energy price) on the productivity of Chilean manufacturing plants. Using information for the period 1992-2005, we quantify and analyze whether this effect has been heterogeneous across plants, according to their energy intensity and...

We examine evidence from a data panel from 2006 to 2009 to explore how chilean households were affected by the negative income shock observed during the recent financial crisis. our results show that there is a negative and significant relationship between income shocks and changes in...

Recent models of international trade show that trade costs are important determinants of exporting decisions and productivity dynamics. By assuming that these costs are exogenous and constant across firms, these theories do not take into account that experienced firms may have lower trading...

This paper analyzes the relationship between probability of survival and plant size. Using information for the Chilean manufacturing industry over the period 1979-1999, we study empirically if small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) have reduced their probability of survival over time. Our...