This paper documents stylized facts on the process of structural transformation around the world and empirically analyzes its determinants using data on real value added by sector of economic activity (agriculture, manufacturing and services) for a panel of 168 countries over the period 1970-2010. The analysis points to large differences in sector shares both across and within regions as well as for countries at similar levels of economic development. Using both linear and quantile regression methods, it finds that a large proportion of the crosscountry variation in sector shares can be accounted for by country characteristics, such as real GDP per capita, demographic structure, and population size. It also finds that policy and insitutional variables, such as product market reforms, openness to trade, human and physical capital, and finance improve the baseline model's ability to account for the variation in sectoral shares across countries. JEL Classification Numbers: O14, O24, O40

This paper analyzes the existence and extent of downward nominal wage rigidities in the Mexican labor market using data from the administrative records of the Mexican Social Security Institute (IMSS). This establishment-level, panel dataset allows us to track workers employed with the same firm, observe their wage profiles and calculate the nominal-wage changes they experience over time. Based on the estimated density functions of nominal wage changes, we are able to calculate some standard tests of nominal wage rigidity that have been proposed in the literature. Furthermore, we extend these tests to take into account the presence of minimum wage laws that may affect the distribution of nominal wage changes. The densities and tests calculated using these data are similar to those obtained using administrative data from other countries, and constitute a significant improvement over the measures of nominal wage rigidities obtained from household survey data. We document the importance of minimum wages in the Mexican labor market, as evidenced by the large fraction of minimum wage earners and the indexation of wage changes to the minimum wage increases. We find considerably more nominal wage rigidity than previous estimates obtained for Mexico using data from the National Urban Employment Survey (ENEU) suggest, but lower than that reported for developed countries by other studies that use comparable data. D

This paper proposes a method for estimating the factor shares using cross sectional household survey data containing detailed information on household income by source. The application of this method to the case of Mexico using data from every available household survey that is representative at the national level, yields the following results: (i) factor shares in Mexico are much closer to those in the United States than the NIPA data suggest, and (ii) factor shares in Mexico have been relatively constant over the time period analyzed. The paper then develops the implications of the differences between factor shares obtained from the NIPA data and the household survey data for some areas of economic research.

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This paper analyses the existence and extent of downward nominal wage rigidities in the Mexican labor market using data from the administrative records of the Mexican Social Security Institute (IMSS). This longitudinal, firm-level dataset allows us to track workers employed with the same firm, observe their wage profiles and calculate the nominal-wage changes they experience over time.Based on the estimated density functions of nominal wage changes and other moments of the distribution, we are able to calculate several standard tests of nominal wage rigidity that have been proposed in the literature. Furthermore, we extend these tests to take into account the presence of minimum wage laws that may affect the distribution of nominal wage changes. The densities and tests calculated using these date are similar to those obtained using administrative data from other countries, and constitute a significant improvement over the measures of nominal wage rigidities obtained from household survey data. We find considerably more wage rigidity than previous estimates obtained for Mexico using data from the National Urban Employment Survey suggest.Furthermore, we find evidence that the extent of nominal wage rigidities has been falling over time.We also document the importance of minimum wages in the Mexican labor market, as evidenced by the large fraction of minimum wage earners and the widespread indexation of wage changes to the minimum wage increases.