infonet-economy

Motivated by a set of stylized facts, we develop a model of cross-border mergers and acquisitions (M&As;) to study foreign direct investment (FDI) in emerging markets. We compare acquisitions undertaken during financial crises – so called fire-sale FDI –with acquisitions made during non-crisis periods to examine whether the outcomes differ in the ways predicted by the model....

The educational gender gap has closed or reversed in many countries. But what of gendered labour market inequalities? Using micro-level census data for some 40 countries, the authors examine the labour force participation gap between men and women, the “marriage gap” between married and single women’s participation, and the “motherhood gap” between mothers’ and nonmothers’...

Countries with weaker domestic investor protection hold less diversified international portfolios. An equilibrium business cycle model of North-South capital flow with corporate governance frictions between outside investors and corporate insiders explains this phenomenon through two channels. First,weak governance leads to concentrated ownership in the South because international...

In 1994, the Zapatistas took up arms claiming for indigenous people rights in Chiapas, Mexico. After 12 days of civil war, the national government called for dialogue. Nevertheless, since then, it has deployed a "low intensity war" over the self-declared Zapatista Autonomous Communities. At the same time, the Zapatistas started to implement a new set of institutions, which have...

This paper proposes novel identification techniques to examine the trade-offs that microfinance institutions face between increasing their profits and their social impact. It uses a quantile regression approach to examine how these trade-offs evolve as institutions become more commercialized. The identification strategy is based on an instrumental variable approach, and also...

We conduct an impact evaluation of the minimum wage legislation for domestic workers that was introduced in four states in India over the period of 2004-2012. Combining the matching and difference-in-difference estimation strategies we estimate both the short-run and long-run impacts of the legislation on real wages and on employment opportunities. Our results show a positive impact...

This paper uses cross-country, firm-level, panel data to study how exporters from Low Income Countries (LICs) adjust their prices according to their trade partners’ characteristics. The results show that the free on board (fob) price of exports is differentiated across markets in all countries in the sample. This differentiated pricing is not commonly associated with small economies...

This paper shows that debt crises do not always have a fiscal nature and suggests that fiscal retrenchment may not be the optimal response to a crisis that did not originate from irresponsible fiscal policies. The paper starts by discussing the origin of debt crises and the unexplained part of public debt and for avoiding debt explosions linked to financial crises or poor debt...