Jorge Pérez Pérez

Jorge Pérez Pérez

Research Economist - Banco de México

Posts by Collection

research

The Consumption of Colombian Households, 2006-2007: Estimation of Demand Systems (In spanish)

Published in Desarrollo y Sociedad, 2010

This paper estimates demand systems for Colombian households using 2006–2007 survey data, examining spending behavior across income groups. We find stable food expenditure elasticities over time, but significant variation across income quintiles. Declining elasticities for health, education, and transport suggest these goods have become necessities, likely reflecting past policy efforts.

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Grading Fiscal Policy in Latin America in the Last Decade

Published in IDB Policy Briefs, 2014

This paper evaluates Latin America’s fiscal performance over the 2000s decade, highlighting both progress and persistent challenges. While countries earned solid marks for countercyclical responses to the Great Recession, many failed to normalize their fiscal positions afterward. Without corrective reforms, the decade’s “C” grade could slip further, but a clear path to fiscal sustainability remained within reach.

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Unpacking the MPI : A Decomposition Approach of Changes in Multidimensional Poverty Headcounts

Listed in World Bank Policy Research Working Paper Series

Coverage: Vox Lacea

Blog post

Multidimensional measures of poverty have become standard as complementary indicators of poverty in many countries. This paper proposes an application of existing methodologies that decompose welfare aggregates -based on counterfactual simulations- to break up the changes of the multidimensional poverty headcount into the variation attributed to each of its dimensions.

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The Efficacy of Hiring Credits in Distressed Areas

Listed in Banco de Mexico working papers

This paper evaluates a hiring tax credit program in North Carolina using a regression discontinuity design based on county-level distress rankings. We find that a $9,000 credit significantly reduces unemployment by nearly 0.5 percentage points and raises employment by about 3%. These results suggest that well-targeted hiring credits can meaningfully improve labor market outcomes in distressed areas.

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The Minimum Wage in Formal and Informal Sectors: Evidence from an Inflation Shock

Published in World Development, 2020

Coverage: HKUST-IEMS , La Silla Vacia , Observatorio Fiscal

Using an unexpected rise in Colombia’s real minimum wage in 1999, this paper estimates its effects on wages and employment across sectors. Minimum wage increases raised earnings near the bottom of the distribution in both formal and informal sectors—more strongly in the former—suggesting partial compliance and reference-wage behavior.

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City Minimum Wages and Spatial Equilibrium Effects

Listed in SocArXiv

Listed in Banco de Mexico working papers

Winner of the 2018 S4 Graduate Student Paper Prize

Coverage: Marginal Revolution

This paper analyzes how local minimum wage hikes reshape spatial equilibrium in U.S. labor markets. Higher minimum wages reduce low-wage commuting into affected areas, with relocation patterns varying by the size of the increase. A spatial model shows that small hikes attract commuters, while larger ones push employment and workers elsewhere.

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Visualization, Identification, and Estimation in the Linear Panel Event Study Design

Published in Advances in Economics and Econometrics - Twelfth World Congress (Forthcoming), 2021

Video Series on Linear Panel Event-Study Designs

Coverage: NBER SI 2023 Methods Lectures - Linear Panel Event Study Designs

This paper examines how to improve event-study plots and estimation strategies in linear panel models for policy analysis. We assess the identifying assumptions behind common approaches and evaluate their performance through simulations. Our xtevent Stata package implements these methods to support more informative and robust empirical work.

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The Changing Valuation of Airbnb Amenities in Mexico During the COVID-19 Pandemic

We analyze how the pandemic shifted traveler preferences in Mexico’s Airbnb market using hedonic price models. Valuation for amenities tied to remote work, open spaces, and reduced contact—like workspaces, beach fronts, and private areas—rose significantly during COVID-19. These changes occurred despite relatively light tourism and mobility restrictions in the country.

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Urban Transit Infrastructure: Spatial Mismatch and Labor Market Power

Listed in CAF Working Papers

Coverage: CAF Transport Infrastructure for the Development of Latin America

This paper studies the effects of a subway expansion in Santiago, Chile, on local labor market outcomes. The analysis shows that improved transit access led to job relocations and wage changes consistent with reduced labor market power by firms. A spatial equilibrium model finds that accounting for these monopsony effects amplifies the welfare gains of the infrastructure investment.

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Disentangling the Effects of Large Minimum Wage and VAT Changes on Prices: Evidence from Mexico

Published in Labour Economics, 2023

Coverage: Banxico , El CEO , 24 Horas , El Financiero , IMCO , El Financiero (2) , Vox LACEA , GatoPardo , Nada es Gratis , México Como Vamos , IBERO , Gobierno de México

We study the simultaneous doubling of the minimum wage and halving of the VAT on Mexico’s northern border in 2019. While the minimum wage hike pushed prices up, the VAT cut more than offset this effect, leading to lower average prices overall. The degree of labor informality in production helps explain variation in price responses across goods.

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Matching and City Size Wage Gaps under the Shadow of Informality: Evidence from Mexico (Reject and Resubmit, Regional Science and Urban Economics)

This paper examines how informality shapes the relationship between city size and labor market matching in Mexico. While larger cities typically enhance assortative matching, this effect is muted in Mexico’s formal sector, where informality is widespread. We find that cities with larger informal sectors exhibit weaker matching patterns in their formal labor markets.

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Expenditure Responses to Adverse Health Shocks: Evidence from a Panel of Colombian Households

Listed in Banco de Mexico working papers

Listed in SocArXiv (Older version)

This paper studies how Colombian households adjust spending after health shocks, finding a trade-off between food and health expenditures. The extent of this adjustment varies by social protection access, job formality, and rural or urban setting. Rural and informal households bear the greatest burden, highlighting the protective role of formal employment and strong institutions.

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Workers, Workplaces, Sorting, and Wage Dispersion in Mexico

Published in Economía LACEA, 2024

Using matched employer-employee data from 2004–2018, this paper decomposes wage dispersion in Mexico into worker, workplace, and sorting components. We find that while overall wage inequality remained stable, the role of sorting and workplace effects grew, particularly in less-developed regions. By the end of the period, workplace characteristics contributed as much to wage variance as worker characteristics.

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Housing Price Gradients in Mexico City During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Listed in Banco de Mexico working papers

Unlike trends seen in many developed cities, Mexico City’s housing price gradient remained stable during the COVID-19 pandemic. Using data from 2019 to 2022, we find no significant change in the relationship between housing prices and distance to the center. Limited remote work, credit constraints, and distinct pandemic policies may explain this divergence.

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Local Labor Markets in Mexico: Definition, Databases, and Descriptive Analysis

Listed in Banxico SIDIE Datasets

This paper defines local labor markets in Mexico by grouping economically integrated municipalities, following international best practices. It links these markets to INEGI census data from 1990 to 2020, creating a valuable resource for labor market research. The resulting framework enables more accurate analysis of local labor market dynamics.

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xtevent: Estimation and Visualization in the Linear Panel Event-Study Design

Published in Stata Journal, 2025

Video Series on Linear Panel Event-Study Designs

This paper introduces the xtevent package for estimating and visualizing policy effects in linear panel event-study designs. It builds on recent methodological advances from Freyaldenhoven et al. (Forthcoming) to allow for flexible treatments, pre-trend adjustments, and more informative event-study plots. The package is designed to make best practices in estimation and visualization accessible to applied researchers.

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Violation and Enforcement of Labor Regulations: Evidence from Mexican Firm Inspections

We study how labor regulation enforcement affects firms and workers in Mexico’s manufacturing sector. Inspections lead to better compliance—more training, fewer accidents, and fewer repeat violations—and boost employment by around 4%. The results suggest that enforcement can curb monopsonistic practices and improve both working conditions and labor supply.

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The Effect of the Minimum Wage on Prices: A New Survey and a Meta-Analysis

We review the literature on how minimum wage increases affect prices. We conduct a meta-analysis of 199 elasticity estimates, finding that a 10% minimum wage increase raises prices by 0.3% to 1.1%. Elasticities are smaller in broader categories of goods but larger in narrow, labor-intensive sectors.

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Better or worse job accessibility? Understanding changes in spatial mismatch: Evidence from Medellín, Colombia

Published in Journal of Transport Geography (Accepted), 2025

This paper introduces a method to measure spatial mismatch that accounts for both transportation and opportunity costs. Applied to Medellín (2012–2017), the analysis shows rising spatial mismatch overall—driven largely by declining job accessibility via private transport. Public transit investments may have helped offset this trend for lower-income commuters.

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teaching

Microeconomic Analysis

Undergraduate course, Universidad del Rosario, Department of Economics, 2010

Introductory microeconomics course for political science and international relations students.

Microeconomics I

Undergraduate course, Universidad del Rosario, Department of Economics, 2017

Introductory microeconomics course for economics and finance students.

Urban Economics

Graduate course, ITAM, 2019

Urban Economics for Graduate Students

Urban Economics

Graduate course, ITAM, 2021

Urban Economics for Graduate Students

Labor Economics

Graduate course, ITAM, 2022

Labor Economics for Graduate Students