Working Papers


Using detailed loan-level data from Chile, we document significant geographic differences in interest rates for firm loans. Firms in cities with high borrowing costs pay around 280 basis points more than firms in low-cost cities. While these estimates account for differences in firm and loan characteristics across cities, we find evidence that they are related to the level of concentration in the local loan market. We examine the pass-through of monetary policy to lending rates and find that banks with higher local market shares exhibit stronger pass-through, aligning with oligopolistic models of branch competition 


Access to administrative records has gained relevance in monitoring key economic indicators, offering a more precise and systematic alternative to surveys. This study analyzes the formal labor market in Chile between 2015 and 2023 using data from the Unemployment Insurance, the Pension System, and the Labor Directorate. It examines the creation, destruction, change, and maintenance of employment, with a focus on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. The results show significant effects in sectors such as commerce and construction during the crisis, followed by a recovery in 2021. Differences in labor flows are observed according to gender, education, age, type of contract, and economic sector, with higher turnover among young women with lower educational levels. Additionally, fluctuations in real wages are identified, with a decline during the pandemic and a recovery from the end of 2022. While these data offer valuable insights, their limitation in capturing informal or self-employment should be considered when interpreting the state of the labor market.


How much do changes in the cost of international freight spill over into domestic inflation? Using Chilean customs data, we document that the sharp increase in average freight costs observed during 2019-2021 was mostly driven by imports from Asia. We exploit the heterogeneous exposure to importing intermediates from this region to estimate a firm-level elasticity of substitution between intermediate inputs from Asia and the rest of the world. Using this estimate in the context of a parsimonious general equilibrium model with nominal rigidities, we calculate that the observed increase in freight costs had an impact, on average, of 1.19 log points on Chilean inflation, which is equivalent to 14% of the total figure for the period Q42019-Q42021.


I investigate the importance of commodity price shocks on aggregate productivity dynamics. I focus on variable utilization of primary factors as driving mechanism. I exploit variation in product tradability and cost exposure to the copper industry to characterize the responses of manufacturing Chilean firms to copper price shocks. I find that, when copper prices increase, establishments selling non-tradables display higher productivity growth than those selling tradables. At the same time, plants more cost-exposed to the copper industry display lower growth. I develop a multi-sector small open economy model featuring frictions to factor management and variable factor utilization. I quantitatively find that variable utilization can generate a strong positive association between copper price shocks and measured aggregate productivity, as it is observed in Chilean data. 


This paper constructs and and calibrates a parsimonious two-country dynamic general equilibrium model of entrepreneurship and migration. Countries differ in their TFP and degree of financial frictions. The model is calibrated to replicate the economic and migratory situation of the United States and the rest of the world. I evaluate the impact of changing migration barriers on GDP per capita, average firms' productivity, business ownership rates, and consumption on both regions. I find that migration barriers have a non-monotone impact on the average productivity of the host country, depending this on the quality  and the mass of people that move in and that are displaced by the entrants. A migration policy that favors the entry of foreign people with a higher entrepreneurial pulse would reduce profits of native entrepreneurs, but would make the economy more efficient and would lift the welfare of workers of the host economy.


Supply chain uncertainty is becoming increasingly frequent. We aim to understand whether firms, faced with supply chain uncertainty, would choose to diversify their sourcing from foreign countries, engage in re-shoring, or select suppliers based on cost or risk considerations. To answer this, we write a multi-country sourcing model that considers heterogeneous firms and trade disruptions. Our findings reveal that, even in the presence of uncertainty, a clear pecking order emerges, with larger firms self-selecting into importing from a more extensive set of suppliers. We also find that import risk introduces a positive option value, associated with diversifying the set of suppliers. We estimate our model using firm-level data from Chile. We perform countefactual exercises to assess the impact of the change in trade uncertainty occurred after the Covid-19 pandemic on the extensive and intensive margins of sourcing.