Chris M. Woodruff
Associate Professor of Economics
cwoodruff@ucsd.edu
Phone: (858) 534-0590
Fax: (858) 534-3939
Office Hours:
Monday
11 a.m. - 12:00 p.m.
or by appointment
9500 Gilman Drive
La Jolla, CA 92093-0519
Office #1321
Education
Ph.D., University of Texas, Austin, 1994 (economics)
M.A., University of California, Los Angeles, 1984 (economics)
B.A., University of Chicago, 1980 (economics)
Biography
CV
Woodruff's research focuses on the challenges faced by small and medium sized firms in developing and transition economies. His research examines how disfunctional legal systems make formal contracting impossible, how inadequate financial systems limit access to financial capital, and how corruption makes retention of profits difficult. Woodruff's research spans a broad area of the developing world including Mexico, Vietnam, and eastern Europe. Currently, Woodruff examines the sources of financial capital for small firms in Mexico. Together with a Mexican colleague, Woodruff finds that remittances from workers in the United States play a large role in financing small enterprises in urban Mexico. Woodruff has written articles on wages in Mexico and the adjustment of firms in Mexico's industrial sector to increases of import levels and export opportunities, the latter primarily the result of NAFTA. He has also written articles on the development of markets in Vietnam and eastern Europe and has served as a consultant to the World Bank and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. Woodruff joined IR/PS in 1994.
Perspectives
Woodruff can provide commentary on a variety of issues related to the impact of NAFTA, and trade liberalization on labor markets and firms in Mexico. Woodruff can also comment on issues affecting the market development of the economies of eastern Europe and Vietnam.
Expertise
Woodruff's primary research focuses on the challenges faced by small and medium sized firms in developing and transition economies. Woodruff studies how dysfunctional legal systems make formal contracting impossible, how inadequate financial systems limit access to financial capital, and how corruption makes retention of profits difficult. Geographically, his research spans a broad area of the developing world: Mexico, Vietnam and eastern Europe.
Current Projects
In one current project, Woodruff examines the sources of financial capital for small firms in Mexico. Together with a Mexican colleague, Woodruff finds that remittances from workers in the United States play a large role in financing small enterprises in urban Mexico. Initial estimates suggest that remittances are responsible for as much as 20% of the capital invested in microenterprises in Mexico. This work will be extended to a set of somewhat larger firms through surveys currently being carried out.
Background Notes
Woodruff has also been a consultant to the World Bank and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. He has been on the faculty at IR/PS since 1994.
Research Interests
Woodruff's research includes examining the sources of financial capital for small firms in Mexico.
Data sets can be accessed here.
Publications of Note
Woodruff has written articles on wages in Mexico and the adjustment of firms in Mexico's industrial sector to increases in import levels and export opportunities, the latter primarily the result of NAFTA. Woodruff has also written articles on the development of markets in Vietnam and eastern Europe.
Recent Publications
Returns to Capital in Microenterprise
• "Experimental Evidence on Returns to Capital and Access to Finance in Mexico," with David McKenzie, April 2007.
• "Measuring Microenterprise Profits: Don't Ask how the Sausage is Made," with Suresh de Mel and David McKenzie, March 2007.
• "Migration Networks and Microenterprises in Mexico," with Rene Zenteno, Journal of Development Economics, March 2007, Vol. 82(2), pp. 509-528.
• "The Impact of Short-term Credit on Microenterprises: Evidence from the Bimbo Program in Mexico," with Pablo Cotler, February 2007.
• "Do Entry Costs Provide an Empirical Basis for Poverty Traps?: Evidence from Mexican Microenterprises," with David McKenzie, Economic Development and Cultural Change, October 2006, Vol. 55 (1), pp. 3-42.
• "Returns to Capital in Microenterprises: Evidence from a Field Experiment," with Suresh de Mel and David McKenzie, August 2006. "Appendix."
Entrepreneurship
• "Mexican-American Entrepreneurship," with Rob Fairlie, June 2007.
• "Experimental Evidence on Returns to Capital and Access to Finance in Mexico," with David McKenzie, April 2007.
• "Mexican Immigrants and the Entrepreneurship Gap," with Rob Fairlie, in Furchgott-Roth ed., Overcoming Barriers to Entrepreneurship, Rowman and Littlefield Press, 2007.
• "Self-employment: Engine of Growth or Self-help Safety Net?" World Bank Studies in Development series, October 2006.
• "Mexican Entrepreneurship: A Comparison of Self-employment in Mexico and the United States," with Rob Fairlie, in Borjas ed., Mexican Immigration to the United States, University of Chicago Press, March 2005.
• "The Central Role of Entrepreneurs in Transition Economies," with J. McMillan, Journal of Economic Perspectives, Vol. 16(3), pp. 153-170, Summer 2002. [Reprinted in Pathways out of Poverty, G. Fields and G. Pfeffermann eds., Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2003]
Remittances and Development
• "Remittances and Banking Services: Evidence from Mexico," with Asli Demirgüç-Kunt, Ernesto López Córdova, and María Soledad Martinez Pería, April 2007.
• "How Does Migration affect Local Development: What Mexico's Experience Tells Us," Upjohn Institute, 2006.
Institutions and Transition
• "The Quality of the Legal System, Firm Ownership, and Firm Size," with Luc Laeven, Review of Economics and Statistics, 2007.
• "Establishing Confidence in Business Partners: Courts, Networks, and Relationships as Pillars of Support," in Kornai, Rose-Ackerman and Rothstein eds., Problems of Post Socialist Transition (Volume 2): Creating Social Trust, Palgrave MacMillan, 2006.
• "The Central Role of Entrepreneurs in Transition Economies," with J. McMillan, Journal of Economic Perspectives, Vol. 16(3), pp. 153-170, Summer 2002. [Reprinted in Pathways out of Poverty, G. Fields and G. Pfeffermann eds., Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2003].
Recent Working Papers
• "Getting Credit to High Return Microenterprises: The Results of an Information Intervention," with Suresh de Mel and David McKenzie, April 2008.
• "Enterprise Recovery Following Natural Disasters," with Suresh de Mel and David McKenzie, February 2008.
• "Who are the Microenterprise Owners?: Evidence from Sri Lanka on Tokman v. de Soto," with Suresh de Mel and David McKenzie, January 2008.
• "Mental Health Recovery and Economic Recovery after the Tsunami: High-Frequency Longitudinal Evidence from Sri Lankan Business Owners," Social Science and Medicine, with Suresh de Mel and David McKenzie, November 2007.
• "Who Does Microfinance Fail to Reach?: Experimental Evidence on Gender and Microenterprise Returns," with Suresh de Mel and David McKenzie, September 2007.
• "Measuring Institutions," in Rose-ackerman, editor, International Handbook on the Economics of Corruption, Edward Elgar Publishers, 2006.
• "How Does Economic Liberalization affect Investment in Education?: Evidence from Mexico," with Susan Helper and David I. Levine, June 2006.
Economic Policy in Latin America
Winter 2009
Course Description:
This course seeks to enhance the students’ understanding of the main policy alternatives open to the largest Latin American countries. Development and stabilization policies are analyzed, emphasizing the current debate between conventional and heterodox policy packages and their impact on decisionmaking. Prerequisites: IRCO 401, IRCO 403.
Managerial Economics
Fall 2008
Course Description:
Survey of basic tools in economics. Examination of how commodity demand is determined, what affects supply of the commodity, how price is determined, when optimal market allocation of resources and failure occur, and basic topics concerning the aggregate economy.
