How much can employers in low and middle-income countries suppress wages below marginal productivity? Using plant and customs data from Colombia, we exploit predetermined variation across plants in sales export destination combined with variation in exchange rates to generate plant-specific...

This paper investigates the impact of agricultural trade liberalization on economic activity and political violence in emerging countries. We use data on all Preferential Trade Agreements (PTAs) signed between 25 low- and middle-income countries and their high-income trade partners between 1995...

Firms in developing countries often avoid paying taxes by making informal payments to tax officials. These bribes may raise the cost of operating a business, and the price charged to consumers. To decrease these costs, we designed a feedback incentive scheme for business tax inspectors that...

To address security concerns, governments often implement trade barriers and restrictions on the movement of goods and people. These restrictions have negative economic consequences, possibly increasing the supply of political violence. To test this hypothesis, we exploit the restrictions...