WORKING
PAPERS
1. LONGER-TERM IMPACTS OF MENTORING, EDUCATIONAL SERVICES,
AND INCENTIVES TO LEARN: EVIDENCE FROM A RANDOMIZED TRIAL IN THE US. January 2010.
Currently submitted and waiting for
editor’s decision.
Abstract
This paper is the first to use a randomized
trial in the US to analyze the short- and long-term educational and employment
impacts of an after-school program that offered disadvantaged high-school
youth: mentoring, educational services, and financial rewards with the
objective to improve high-school graduation and post-secondary schooling
enrollment. Average impacts reveal that
the hefty beneficial educational outcomes quickly faded away. Heterogeneity matters. While encouraging results are found for the
younger youth; detrimental long-lived
outcomes for males suggest that extrinsic rewards may be crowding out intrinsic
motivation. Evidence by sites’ funding source, which led
to implementation differences, supports this hypothesis.
2. THE PART-TIME PAY PENALTY IN A SEGMENTED LABOR
MARKET
(joint work with Daniel
Fernández Kranz). August, 2009.
Revise
and Resubmit.
IZA
discussion paper No. 4342, August 2009. (updated
version of the paper)
Press
coverage: El Economista,
November 7th, 2009; El País, December
5th, 2010
Abstract
While much of the literature
that investigates the part-time (PT)
/ full-time (FT) hourly wage differential and its causes focuses on average
effects, very few studies analyze the heterogeneous effects of PT work across
different subgroups, despite the policy relevance of understanding channels
behind the (raw) PT penalty in different labor markets. This paper is the first to examine the
implications of switching to PT work for women’s subsequent earnings
trajectories, distinguishing by their type of contract: permanent or fixed-term. Using a 21-year unbalanced Social Security
records panel of over 76,000 prime-aged women strongly attached to the Spanish
labor market, we find that PT work aggravates the segmentation of the labor
market insofar there is a PT pay penalty and this penalty is larger and more
persistent in the case of women with fixed-term contracts. The paper discusses problems arising in
empirical estimation, and how to address them.
It concludes with policy implications relevant for Continental Europe
and its dual structure of employment protection.
3. IMMIGRANTS’ ASSIMILATION PROCESS IN A
SEGMENTED LABOR MARKET
(joint with Miguel Angel
Alcobendas). September 2009.
Currently submitted and waiting for
editor’s decision. (updated
version of the paper)
Abstract
While much of the literature on immigrants’ assimilation has focused on countries with a large tradition of receiving immigrants and with flexible labor markets, very little is known on how immigrants adjust to other types of host economies. With its severe dual labor market, and an unprecedented immigration boom, Spain presents a perfect natural experiment to analyze immigrations’ assimilation process. Using data from the 2000 to 2008 Spanish Labor Force Survey, we find that immigrants are more occupationally mobile than natives, and that much of this greater flexibility is explained by immigrants’ assimilation process soon after arrival. However, we find little evidence of convergence, especially among women and high skilled immigrants. This suggests that instead of integrating, immigrants are occupationally segregating, implying that there is both imperfect substitutability and underutilization of immigrants’ human capital.
8. DISPLACEMENT, SIGNALING, AND RECALL
EXPECTATIONS: THEORY AND EVIDENCE
January 2010.
Currently submitted and waiting for
editor’s decision. (updated version of the
paper)
Abstract
This paper is the first to present
empirical evidence consistent with models of signaling through unemployment and
to uncover a new stylized fact using the 1988-2006 DWS, namely that, among
white-collar workers, post-displacement earnings fall less rapidly with
unemployment spells for layoffs than for plant closings. Because high-productivity workers are more
likely to be recalled than low-productivity ones, they may choose to signal
their productivity though unemployment, in which case the duration of
unemployment may be positively related to post-displacement wages. Identification is done using workers whose
plant closed as they cannot be recalled, and no incentives to signal arise.
9. DISTRIBUTIONAL EFFECTS OF THE MINIMUM WAGE
INCREASE: EVIDENCE FROM CALIFORNIA.
July 1998. http://pareto.uab.es/nrodriguez/minwg.rtf
WORK IN PROGRESS
10. IMMIGRANTS’
ASSIMILATION AND WELFARE PARTICIPATION IN A MEDITERRANEAN WELFARE STATE: THE CASE OF SPAIN
While much of the literature on immigrants’
cash-welfare benefits use has focused on countries with a large tradition of
receiving immigrants and with well established Welfare states, very little is
known on how immigrants adjust to other types of host economies. With a Welfare state heavily reliable on
conditioned access to pensions and with a small level of social assistance, and
an unprecedented immigration boom, Spain presents a quite unique experience to
analyze differences in welfare utilization between immigrants and natives. Using data from the 1999 to 2009 Labor Force
Survey, we find that immigrants are less
likely to use welfare than natives, and that this residual welfare gap remains,
even after accounting for socio-demographic characteristics. In terms of assimilation into welfare, we find
that immigrants assimilate in terms of unemployment benefits receipt, but no
assimilation is observed among all other social programs. These results suggest that most immigrants
have come to Spain to work, but that they are also the ones in the most
vulnerable positions and thus the ones more likely to be hit by the recent
recession and to use unemployment benefits once they have accumulated the right
to do so. Their precarious situation and
reduced access to the scarce social assistance offered in Spain raises policy
concerns on their risk of social exclusion.
11. CAN AN INTENSIVE HELP PROGRAM FOR AT-RISK YOUGH HELP
PREVENT RISKY BEHAVIOURS? EVIDENCE FROM A RANDOMIZED TRIAL
Using evidence from a randomized
trial, this paper estimates the impact on risky behaviors from a five-year
after-school program, the Quantum Opportunity Program (QOP hereafter) that
offered disadvantaged high-school youth intense case-management and mentoring,
educational services, and financial incentives to attend program activities and
complete major program activities. Risky behaviors include
substance abuse, crime, and teenage childbearing. Impacts were estimated by comparing outcomes for two statistically
equivalent groups created by random assignment—a QOP group and a control
group. Outcomes were measured at three
different points in time, 1 year, 4 years and 6 years after the end of the
program. Overall the program was
unsuccessful at reducing risky behaviors.
Thorough analysis on how the
program was implemented and of the program’s differential effects across
different subgroups will provide information on why such and intensive
after-school program had such little success at reducing risky behaviors and
what are the lessons learned.
12.
MOTHERS’ QUEST FOR JOB PROTECTION: BUILDING THE NEST OR BREAKING THE
GLASS CEILING? EVIDENCE USING SPANISH LONGITUDINAL DATA. Joint with Daniel
Fernández Kranz and Aitor Lacuesta. Previous research has found
that temporary contracts delay marriage and fertility in Spain. Using newly
released administrative data we study the motivations behind the fertility
delay that is associated with job protection. We find that during the five
years after the birth of the first child mothers in protected jobs promote less
and their wages grow less (16 per cent) compared to mothers that had a
fixed-term contract at the time of childbirth. The poor after-birth outcomes of
mothers in protected jobs contrasts with their better performance before birth,
with wages growing more rapidly than those of other women and other mothers. We
provide evidence that a permanent contract acts as insurance against the
negative wage effects of motherhood, but at the price of less wage growth. We
also find that mothers that had a permanent contract at childbirth reduce their
working time more, forgo opportunities of promotion outside the firm and have a
lower return to each additional year of experience compared to mothers with a
temporary contract. Our interpretation of these results is that job protection
helps mothers conciliate work and family responsibilities rather than to
achieve professional success.
13.
CHILDCARE POLICY, FERTILITY AND LABOR SUPPLY OF MOTHERS WITH SMALL YOUNG
CHILDREN: A NATURAL EXPERIMENT FROM SPAIN. Spain has record-low fertility and female
labor force participation rates. These population trends may jeopardize
economic growth in the absence of offsetting changes in employment rates and
productivity, and may require structural adaptations with important
implications for public pensions, health expenditures, and welfare. This paper
uses the variation over time and across regions in an education policy change
in Spain to assess the effect of a reduction in childcare costs in fertility and
female labor force participation. Implications of the policy are evaluated
using data from the Encuesta de Poblacion Activa (EPA) and
differences-in-differences quasi-experimental methodology.
14.
UNIVERSAL CHILDCARE AND CHILDREN’S COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT: A NATURAL
EXPERIMENT FROM SPAIN. Joint with
Christine Felfe. This paper uses the
variation over time and across regions in an education policy change in Spain
to assess the effect of a reduction in childcare costs in children’s cognitive
development. Implications of the policy are evaluated using data from PISA and
differences-in-differences quasi-experimental methodology.
15.
NEW TECHNOLOGIES AND SKILL MIX IN SPAIN (joint work with Isabel Busom
Piquer). Since the transition
to democracy, Spain has experienced the following two processes. On the
one hand, industries have invested greatly in the use of
automation. On the other, there has been a notorious improvement of human
capital, with its implications on the mix of skilled versus unskilled labor
available to entrepreneurs. This project uses plant-level data to analyze
the link between automation and skill mix in the last two decades in
Spain. More specifically, the project
will use panel data from “la Encuesta Tecnológica en las Empresas” to identify
the direction of the causality between the use of new technologies in the
production and the human capital improvements.