Developing countries frequently offer tax incentives and even subsidize the entry and operation of foreign firms. I examine the optimality of such policies in an economy where growth is driven by entrepreneurial know-how, a skill that is continuously updated on the basis of the productive ideas...

Infl ows of foreign knowledge are the key for developing countries to catch up with the world technology frontier. In this paper, I construct a simple tractable model to analyze (a) the incentives of foreign fi rms to bring their know-how to a developing country and (b) the incentives of...

Gino Gancia, Giacomo Ponzetto and Jaume Ventura have written an extremely interesting paper on a topic that is very timely for the global economy. In this article, I will first argue that GPV have succeeded in formalizing their hypothesis, and that while providing very suggestive analytical...

We examine the emergence and consequences of urban slums along a country's path to urbanization. Based on salient evidence from Brazilian labor, housing, and education markets, we study the interaction of slums with structural transformation and inequality. Urban slums are an intergenerational...

We develop a human capital model with borrowing constraints explicitly derived from government student loan programs and private lending under limited commitment. Two key implications of our analysis are: (i) binding constraints may not depress investment; and (ii) a positive relationship...

We review studies of the impact of credit constraints on the accumulation of human capital. Evidence suggests that credit constraints have recently become important for schooling and other aspects of households' behavior. We highlight the importance of early childhood investments, since their...

Rising costs of and returns to college have led to sizeable increases in the demand for student loans in many countries. In the U.S., student loan default rates have also risen for recent cohorts as labor market uncertainty and debt levels have increased. We discuss these trends as well as...