Publications
Firm Dynamics, Informality, and Monetary Policy. The B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics, 2025 (doi.org/10.1515/bejm-2025-0024).
The Evolving Landscape of Tourism, Travel, and Global Trade since the Covid-19 Pandemic. Research in Globalization, 2024 (joint with W. Leimgruber). (link.)
Accounting for Real Exchange Rates in Emerging Economies: The Role of Commodity Prices. International Review of Economics and Finance, 2022 (joint with F. Dzikpe) (link).
International Risk Sharing in Emerging Economies. International Finance, 2020 (link). online appendix (pdf).
Informality and International Business Cycles. Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions & Money, 2019 (link)
Financial Intermediation and Real Estate Prices Impact on Business Cycles: A Bayesian Analysis. North American Journal of Economics and Finance, 2018 (link)
Cyclical wage movements in emerging markets compared to developed economies: A general equilibrium comment. The Journal of International Trade & Economic Development, 2018 (link). (Highlights link)
The Impact of Credit and Fiscal Policy under a Liquidity Trap. North American Journal of Economics and Finance, 2017 (link).
Financial Conditions and Labor Productivity over the Business Cycle. Economics Letters, 2017 (link). online appendix (pdf).
Financial Intermediation, Consumption Dynamics, and Business Cycles. Economic Modelling, 2017 (link).
Working Papers
The Sovereign Debt Cost of Eurozone Shadow Economies (with F. Guzman).
Sovereign debt defaults remain a significant concern for both defaulting nations and international creditors. While existing literature has identified key macroeconomic and global drivers of sovereign default, it often neglects the impact of the shadow or informal economy. This study investigates the role of informality in sovereign defaults among Eurozone countries. We empirically evaluate the influence of informality using a novel metric of informality (EVADE) developed by Pappada and Rogoff (2025), which is based on tax compliance data for the European Union. Furthermore, we develop a basic theoretical model of sovereign default to identify a plausible mechanism through which the informal economy impacts sovereign default risk. Our findings highlight that the size of a country’s informal sector is a critical factor in determining the risk of sovereign debt default.
Commodity prices, business cycles, and informality in small open economies.
This paper studies the transmission of commodity price shocks in economies with a large informal sector. First, I provide novel empirical evidence that the informality rate increases in response to higher commodity prices. This new fact qualifies the commonly-held view that informal employment generally works as an insurance mechanism against shocks. Second, I develop a model of a small open commodity exporting economy with endogenous firm entry to analyze the transmission of commodity price shocks on sectoral (formal and informal) labor market and aggregate dynamics, as well as movements of the real exchange rate and capital flows. I find that the income effect resulting from commodity prices can be reconciled with the empirical facts when there is high substitutability across goods.