Research

Published and Submitted Papers:

  1. “Of Cities and Slums,“ Federal Reserve Bank of St Louis Working Paper 2016-022A, October 2016. (with Pedro Cavalcanti and Luciene Torres) Revision requested, Journal of Political Economy. Paper. Slides
  2. “Occupational Mobility, Human Capital and the Aggregate Consequences of Task-Biased Innovations” Federal Reserve Bank of St Louis Working Paper, April 2019. (with Maximiliano Dvorkin) Submitted. Paper. Slides
  3. “Should Capital Flow from Rich to Poor Countries?“ Federal Reserve Bank of St Louis Review, October 2019. (with Juan Sanchez, Raul Santaeulalia-Llopis and Faisal Sohail) Paper.
  4. “Natural Resources and Global Misallocation.” American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, 11 (2), 79-126. (with Juan Sanchez and Raul Santaeullalia-Llopis) Paper.
  5. “Markets, Externalities and the Dynamic Gains of Openness.” International Economic Review. August 2019. Paper.
  6. “Student Loans Under the Risk of Youth Unemployment,” Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Review, Second Quarter 2016, Vol. 98, No. 2, 129-58. Paper.
  7. “Student Loans and Repayment: Theory, Evidence and Policy”. Handbook of the Economics of Education, Volume 5. (2016) (with Lance J. Lochner) Paper.
  8. “Default and Repayment among Baccalaureate Degree Earners” in Brad Hershbein and Kevin Hollenbeck (eds.), Student Loans and the Dynamics of Debt, Chapter 8, Kalamazoo: W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research (2015) (with Lance J. Lochner)
  9. “Credit Constraints in Education”, Annual Review of Economics, August 2012, Vol. 4, pp. 225-256. (with Lance Lochner)
  10. “The Nature of Credit Constraints and Human Capital,” The American Economic Review, October 2011, Vol. 101, Issue 6, pp. 2487-2529 (with Lance Lochner)
  11. “Learning and the Wealth of Nations,” Econometrica, January 2011, Vol. 79, Issue 1, pp. 1-45 (leading article); (with Francisco Buera and Giorgio Primiceri)
  12. “Foreign Know-How, Firm Control and the Income of Developing Countries,” The Quarterly Journal of Economics, February 2009, Vol. 124, No. 1: 149.195. (with Ariel Burstein)
  13. “Entrepreneurship and Firm Heterogeneity under Limited Commitment,” The Annals of Finance, April 2009, Vol. 5, No. 3-4: 465-494.
  14. “Economic Growth in Paraguay.” in Sources of Growth in Latin America. What Is Missing? Inter American Development Bank, Fernández-Arias, E., Manuelli, R. and Blyde, J. eds. (January 2006)
  15. “NAFTA and Manufacturing Productivity in Mexico: A Comment.” in Economia, The Journal of the Latin American and Caribbean Economic Association, Fall 2003, Volume 4, Number 1.
  16. “Access to Credit and the Performance of Firms in Costa Rica.” in Credit Constraints and Investment in Latin America. Galindo, A. and Schiantarelli, F. eds. Inter-American Development Bank, July 2003. (with Luis J. Hall)
  17. “Enforcement Mechanisms, Default, and Contract Design: Exploring the Credit Markets in Costa Rica.” in Defusing Default: Incentives and Institutions. Pagano, Marco, editor. Washington, DC: InterAmerican Development Bank. (November 2001)

Work in Progress and Working Papers

  1. “Finance and Inequality: A Tale of Two Tails”  (with Alexander Ludwig, Ctirad Slavik, and Faisal Sohail). Slides.
  2. “From Malthus to Malthus”  (with Pedro Cavalcanti and Luciene Torres) Slides.
  3. “On the Assignment of Workers to Occupations and the Aggregate Human Capital of Countries” (with Veronica Mies and Matias Tapia) Slides
  4. “Industrial Revolutions and Global Imbalances”  (with Kenichi Ueda and Konstantin Kucheryavyy) Slides
  5. “Openness and the Optimal Taxation of Foreign Know-How,” Federal Reserve Bank of St Louis Working Paper 2016-020A, October 2016.
  6. “Education Policies and Structural Transformation,” Federal Reserve Bank of St Louis Working Paper 2014- 039A, October 2014. (with Pedro Cavalcanti and Luciene Torres)