Call for Research Proposals: Regulatory Framework and Productivity in Latin America

CAF -Development Bank of Latin America- is inviting researchers to submit research proposals that measure the impact of specific regulations and public policies on (sectoral or aggregate) productivity.

Proposals should focus on specific regulations or policies in Latin America. We invite projects of the following two types:

• Case studies addressing the effect of industry-specific regulations/policies on productivity. We are particularly interested in "network" sectors such as telecommunications, transport and energy.
• Studies addressing broader regulations/policies affecting all sectors or a large subset of them.

We are particularly interested in regulations/policies aimed at:

• Competition advocacy and antitrust,
• Intellectual property protection,
• Bankruptcy,
• Consumer protection,
• Innovation,
• Employment protection, unemployment insurance, and minimum wages,
• Collective (wage) bargaining,
• Social security and pensions,
• SME and entrepreneurship financing,
• Credit allocation,
• Trade, and
• Environmental protection.

We also welcome proposals that focus on regulatory and bureaucratic procedures (i.e., red tape) that affect, for
example, firm entry or the efficiency of the judicial system in order to facilitate contract enforcement.

Proposals should be sent to investigacion@caf.com until March 15, 2017. The authors of the proposals selected will be notified about March 30, and the first draft is expected to be sent by August 31.

A maximum of 6 projects will be awarded funding of US$ 15,000 each, with an additional amount of up to US$ 5,000 for proposals that use administrative data.

For more information and details of the call, please download the following document.