Published in Advances in Economics and Econometrics - Twelfth World Congress, 2025
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Published in Observatorio Laboral, Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, 2025
Using data from DANE, the Ministry of Labor, and the Penn World Tables for 1990–2026, we examine the determinants of minimum wage increases in Colombia. Regression results show that past inflation is the primary driver of minimum wage adjustments, that productivity plays only a secondary role, and that tripartite consensus within the commission is not associated with higher or better outcomes. The paper discusses the trade-offs of replacing the current negotiation process with an automatic indexation rule.
Published in Banco de México Data Lab (EconLab), 2024
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.
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.
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.
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.
We study how enforcing workplace regulations affects firms and workers in Mexico’s manufacturing sector. Firms with lower productivity, a smaller share of women, and a higher labor market share are more likely to violate regulations, and inspections raise compliance through more worker training and fewer workplace accidents. A staggered difference-in-differences design shows that inspections raise firm employment by approximately 4% within one year, highlighting enforcement as an effective tool to improve working conditions and mitigate labor market power.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 raises employment by 4%, or by 1.2 percentage points in the employment-to-population ratio, and lowers the unemployment rate by around 0.3 percentage points. These results suggest that well-targeted hiring credits can meaningfully improve labor market outcomes in distressed areas.
Listed in World Bank Policy Research Working Paper Series
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.
We estimate local labor supply elasticities in Mexico for 1990–2020 with shift-share instruments. Outside agriculture, a 1% demand-driven rise in male employment raises male wages by 0.36%. Female supply is even more elastic: local demand shocks mainly create jobs, not higher wages.
Using monthly panel data on more than 26,000 Airbnb listings in Mexico City, we examine whether the anti-gentrification marches held in July 2025 affected the short-term rental market near the main march route in the Condesa neighborhood. We find no significant effect on average prices or participation, but we do find a significant decline in participation among high-price properties.
We examine the USMCA’s Rapid Response Mechanism (RRM) and its impact on sham unions in Mexico, which have undermined worker representation. Results indicate a 5.1% wage increase but a 10.7% decrease in employment at affected firms, as companies outsource and reduce blue-collar jobs, particularly affecting younger workers. Non-targeted firms benefit from increased market share.
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.
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.
