We account for the appreciation of the real exchange rate in Mexico between 1988 and 2002 using a two sector dynamic general equilibrium model of a small open economy with two driving forces: (i) differential productivity growth across sectors and (ii) a decline in the cost of borrowing in...

This paper documents how informal employment in Mexico is countercyclical, lags the cycle and is negatively correlated to formal employment. This contributes to explaining why total employment in Mexico displays low cyclicality and variability over the business cycle when compared to Canada, a...

We document and account for two facts regarding the relation between international interest rates and total factor productivity (TFP) in a sample of developing countries. First, there is a negative correlation between both variables at quarterly frequency. Second, the share of agricultural labor...

Detrended Total Factor Productivity (TFP), net of changes in capital utilization, fell by 3.3% after the Korean 1997 financial crisis. Detrended real GDP per working age person fell by 11.9%. We construct a two-sector small open economy model that can account for 30.0% of the fall in TFP in...