Joint work with Alonso Alfaro-Ureña and Jose Vasquez.

Abstract. We document an ample degree of dispersion of supplier quality, defined as the effect of a supplier’s inputs on its buyer’s sales, in the Costa Rican production network. Supplier quality also appears uncorrelated with buyer unobservables, suggesting the existence of both informational and spatial frictions affecting firms’ choice of suppliers. We quantify these two forces via a structural model of production network formation.

Joint work with Francesco Del Prato.

Abstract. In local labor markets, workers often move at early stages of their careers from lower-paying firms that provide them training, to better-paying, specialized firms. We call this mechanism “human capital value chain” and we document its implications on both workers’ wage paths and local agglomeration externalities.