Publications

“Crowding Out of Private Support to the Elderly: Evidence from a Demogrant in Mexico”, Journal of Public Economics, vol. 93(3-4), pages 454-463, April 2009.

 “The Effect of an Old-Age Demogrant on the Labor Supply and Time Use of the Elderly and Non-Elderly in Mexico” (2010), B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis and Policy: Vol. 10 : Issue 1, Article 48 (http://www.bepress.com/bejeap/vol10/iss1/art48/).

Working papers

“Are Informal Workers Compensated for the Lack of Fringe Benefits? Using Free Health Care as an Instrument for Formality”, revise and resubmit at the Journal of Labor Economics

Abstract: This paper estimates the effect of having a job covered by social security, on the wages of female salaried workers. I overcome the heterogeneity bias that typically contaminates estimates by using the exogenous availability of free health care and prescription drugs implemented in 2001 in the part of Mexico City that belongs to Distrito Federal (DF). This program provides valid instruments because health care is a substantial component of the benefits provided by social security, so the availability of alternative free healthcare should decrease the incentive to contribute to the system. In addition, eligibility for this program is not correlated with individual unobserved characteristics that affect either wages or the choice of sector. My results show that being a DF resident after free healthcare was implemented has a negative an significant effect on the probability that a female salaried worker has social security in her current job. Regarding wages, not controlling for the endogeneity of formality on the wage regression gives rise to a positive formal premium as in previous studies for both developed and developing countries. In contrast, my instrumental variables results show that female salaried workers in the formal sector earn between 16 to 23 percent less than female workers in informal jobs. These results show that workers who receive higher fringe benefits are paid a lower wage, which supports the compensating differential theory. In the Mexican context, it would also suggest that informal salaried workers are not necessarily worse off than their counterparts in the formal sector.

Work in Progress

“Time Resources and Relative Power in the Family: Lessons from a Demogrant for the Elderly in Mexico”, joint with Manuel Chavez.

“Testing the Repayment Hypothesis for Private Transfers using the Progresa Experiment”, joint with Carlos Chiapa.

“The Impact of An Increase in Women’s Income on Expenditures and on the Access to Credit in Rural Mexico”