This paper exploits a large-scale natural experiment to study the equilibrium effects of information restrictions in credit markets. In 2012, Chilean credit bureaus were forced to stop reporting defaults for 2.8 million individuals (21% of the adult population). We show that the effects of information deletion on aggregate borrowing and total surplus are theoretically ambiguous and depend on the pre-deletion demand and cost curves for defaulters and non-defaulters. Using panel data on the universe of bank borrowers in Chile combined with the deleted registry information, we implement machine learning techniques to measure changes in lenders' cost predictions following deletion. Deletion reduces (raises) predicted costs the most for poorer defaulters (non-defaulters) with limited borrowing histories. Using a difference-in-differences design, we find that individuals exposed to increases in predicted costs reduce borrowing by 6.4%, while those exposed to decreases raise borrowing by 11.8% following the deletion, for a 3.5% aggregate drop in borrowing. Using the difference-in-difference estimates as inputs into the theoretical framework, we find evidence that deletion reduced aggregate welfare under a variety of assumptions about lenders' pricing strategies.

The increasing prominence of China in world trade raises important questions about the impact of this on importer countries. In this paper, we address the issue of how import competition from China has affected relative wages in the Chilean manufacturing industry. Using plant-level data for the period 1996-2005, we find that increasing imports from China have depressed relative wages in sectors with higher Chinese-import penetration. Our results show a significant reduction of relative wages, between 4 and 25 percent, for those sectors that have experienced the largest increases in Chinese imports. We also find that this effect is particularly strong for small firms, while large firms are unaffected.

Developing countries are trying to develop long-term financial markets and institutional investors are expected to play a key role. This paper uses unique evidence on the universe of institutional investors from the leading case of Chile to study to what extent mutual funds, pension funds, and insurance companies hold and bid for long-term instruments, and which factors affect their choices. The paper uses monthly asset-level portfolios to show that, despite the expectations, mutual and pension funds invest mostly in short-term assets relative to insurance companies. The significant difference across maturity structures is not driven by the supply side of debt or tactical behavior. Instead, it seems to be explained by manager incentives (related to short-run monitoring and the liability structure) that, combined with risk factors, tilt portfolios toward short-term instruments, even when long-term investing yields higher returns. Thus, the expansion of large institutional investors does not necessarily imply longer-term markets.