Research
Publications - Working Papers - Work in Progress
Publications
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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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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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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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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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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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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Working Papers
Listed in SSRN
We study how enforcing workplace regulations affects firms and workers in Mexico’s manufacturing sector. Firms with greater market power and lower training investment are more likely to violate regulations; however, inspections improve compliance, reduce accidents, and lower the frequency of repeat violations. A staggered difference-in-differences design shows inspections raise employment by 4–7%, highlighting enforcement as an effective tool to improve working conditions and labor market outcomes.
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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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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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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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This paper examines how informality shapes the relationship between city size and labor market matching in Mexico. We find that cities with larger informal sectors exhibit weaker matching patterns in their formal labor markets.
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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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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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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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Work in Progress
While Mexico has improved the education of its labor force, has had a stable macroeconomic environment, and has been friendly to international trade, its labor market still faces many challenges. Particularly, Mexico has difficulties creating high-paying jobs: The share of informal employment has remained stagnant for the last 20 years, and by 2025 remains at around 50%. These problems are particularly poignant in southern Mexico.
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This paper develops a model of monopsonistic competition where firms choose between formal and informal sectors to evade regulation. Calibrated to Mexican data, the model shows that moderate minimum wage hikes can raise efficiency and formality in the short run. However, long-run shifts toward informality erode these gains, making a non-binding minimum wage optimal.
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We study a 2009 policy introducing English in Mexican elementary schools and its effects on later outcomes. Exposure to English reduced formal employment rates but raised wages and shifted workers toward tourism and English-intensive jobs. Initial negative effects on test scores faded with longer exposure, consistent with genuine skill acquisition driving wage gains.
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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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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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