Published in Desarrollo y Sociedad, 2010
Using household data from the 2006-2007 Households Income and Expenditure survey, we estimate four different specifications of demand systems for Colombia. We also calculate expenditure, income and price elasticities for different groups of goods.
Published in IDB Policy Briefs, 2014
Fiscal policy in Latin America has been historically imprudent and continues to be viewed with skepticism. At the same time, most countries have remained out of trouble for several years and were able to successfully conduct proactive countercyclical fiscal policy to fight the Great Recession, a historical first. This paper examines the last decade to assess progress, highlight weaknesses, and chart the way forward.
Listed in World Bank Policy Research Working Paper Series
Coverage: Vox Lacea
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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We review approaches to identification in the linear panel event-study design and discuss some of their connections. We illustrate strengths and weaknesses of the corresponding estimators using simulations. We discuss the role of “event study plots” commonly presented in applied research, and make some suggestions on the construction of these plots.
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Listed in Banco de Mexico working papers
We analyze the efficacy of hiring tax credits, particularly in distressed labor markets. Our estimates show positive effects on employment and sizable reductions on the unemployment rate.
Published in World Development, 2020
Coverage: HKUST-IEMS , La Silla Vacia
I estimate the effect of the minimum wage on formal wages, informal wages, and employment in Colombia. I exploit an unexpected increase in the real minimum wage during the 1999 Colombian economic crisis to estimate short- term effects of the minimum wage along the distribution of wages in both sectors. I find evidence of wage responses, with a stronger incidence in the formal sector.
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2020
We analyze accessibility to jobs through different transportation modes and the extent of job spatial mismatch at the intra-urban level in a developing country city. We use data from Medellín, Colombia, from 2012 to 2017, to measure accessibility using employment weighted by travel times. We find that despite the continuous investment in public transportation and transport infrastructure, spatial mismatch in Medellín has increased, and it is considerably larger for job seekers and workers using public transport compared to those using private transport.
2020
We analyze the effect of adverse health shocks on different expenditure shares. We find that households engage in substitution between health expenditures and food expenditures. We also find important heterogeneity in this trade-off between present health and future health mediated by access to social protection, job contract type, and location (urban-rural).
2020
Coverage: Banxico , El CEO , 24 Horas
In January 2019, the minimum wage in the Mexican border with the United States increased by 100 percent. At the same time, the value-added tax (VAT) rate decreased by half. We propose an identification strategy that allows us to separate the effects of the minimum wage and the VAT on prices. We find that the increase in the minimum wage is associated with economically and statistically significant increases in the prices of VAT goods, and with smaller, imprecisely estimated increases for Non-VAT goods, concentrated in food Non-VAT goods. The increments in prices due to the minimum wage were more than offset by decreases associated with the VAT, so in the absence of both policy changes, average prices would have been higher.
Coverage: CAF Transport Infrastructure for the Development of Latin America
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Listed in SocArXiv
Winner of the 2018 S4 Graduate Student Paper Prize
Coverage: Marginal Revolution
Local minimum wage laws are becoming common across U.S. cities, and their effects may be different from effects of state or nation-wide minimum wage policies. I study the effect of changes in minimum wages on spatial equilibria in local labor markets. Using residence and workplace data for the U.S., I analyze how commuting, residence and work locations change across city and state borders when minimum wages change on either side of the border.
TA, Universidad del Rosario, Department of Economics, 2008
Multiple courses in Econometrics, Microeconomics and Introductory Economics
Undergraduate course, Universidad del Rosario, Department of Economics, 2010
Introductory microeconomics course for political science and international relations students.
TA, Brown University, Department of Economics, 2014
This course examines identification issues in empirical microeconomics.
Summer course, Brown University, Summer at Brown Program, 2016
AP Statistics and Introductory Econometrics for high school juniors and seniors.
Undergraduate course, Universidad del Rosario, Department of Economics, 2017
Introductory microeconomics course for economics and finance students.
Summer course, Brown University, Summer at Brown Program, 2017
AP Statistics and Introductory Econometrics for high school juniors and seniors.
Graduate course, ITAM, 2019
Urban Economics for Graduate Students