A key feature of developing economies is that wages in agriculture are significantly below those of other sectors. Using Brazilian household surveys and administrative panel data, I use information on workers who switch sectors to decompose this gap. I find that most of the gap is explained by...

This paper assesses the costs of internal trade barriers and proposes policies to improve internal trade. Estimates suggest that complete liberalization of internal trade in goods can increase GDP per capita by about 4 percent and reallocate employment towards provinces that experience large...

We assess the aggregate productivity impact of distortions arising from labor regulations in Mexico and how they interact with informality. Using employment surveys and a firm-level economic census, we document a number of novel features about informal firms in Mexico. We then construct and...

We document a large decrease in earnings inequality in Brazil between 1996 and 2012. Using administrative linked employer-employee data, we fit high-dimensional worker and firm fixed effects models to understand the sources of this decrease. Firm effects account for 40 percent of the total...

While progress has been made in increasing female labor force participation (FLFP) in the last 20 years, large gaps remain. The latest Fund research shows that improving gender diversity can result in larger economic gains than previously thought. Indeed, gender diversity brings benefits all its...

A large share of cross-country differences in productivity is explained by differences in agricultural productivity. Using a combination of sub-national agricultural statistics and geospatial datasets on crop-specific potential yields, we study the main drivers of this variation from a...

This paper assesses the costs of internal trade barriers and proposes policies to improve internal trade. Estimates suggest that complete liberalization of internal trade in goods can increase GDP per capita by about 4 percent and reallocate employment towards provinces that experience large...

How often have wage-price spirals occurred, and what has happened in their aftermath? We investigate this by creating a database of past wage-price spirals among a wide set of advanced economies going back to the 1960s. We define a wage-price spiral as an episode where at least three out of four...