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RESEARCH: Working Papers
and Recent Publications |
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Here I list some of my recent papers (when they exist). I first list my working papers and then
papers that have been published. You can find most of my published papers as well as several working
papers on my page at the REPEC
web site or in my Google
Scholar. You will find a complete list of publications on my CV.
For a list of projects I am working now click here. Working Papers
with Arthur Alik-Lagrange Costas Meghir, Sandra Polanνa-Reyes and Marcos Vera-Hernαndez (available soon) Abstract: Workfare programs provide a low paid employment
guarantee to individuals in selected public works. They are designed to
self-select the poor and provide insurance against job losses by informal
sector workers at the possible cost of crowding out private labor effort. We analyze the
impact of a Colombian workfare program called Job in Action [Empleo en Acciσn] to shed light
on the following issues: (1) whether the program crowds out labor effort by members of the household different from
the participant in the particular context of a middle-income economy, (2)
whether there are gains in household labor income,
but also in consumption, which is important to assess the role of the program
as an insurance mechanism and (3) whether there are some gains from
participating in the program six months after the program has finished. Our results show no evidence of the program
crowding out private labor effort by other
household members. In addition, we find that the program had large positive
transfer benefits, as the program increased
individuals labor income and labor
supply in large as well as small municipalities. There is a positive
significant impact in small municipalities on consumption
which is doubled when focusing only on food consumption. Finally, we
do find that the program had a significant positive effect on individuals
outcomes as well as on households monthly labor
income per capita in small rural municipalities six months after the program
ended. We shed light on the potential channels explaining this novel result
in the literature on public work schemes.
.
.
with Flavio Cunha and Pamela
Jervis (available soon)
.
with Costas Meghir and Emily
Nix Abstract:
We study human
development from the early years to adolescence by embedding a structural
model within a measurement system for factor models. Our theoretical
framework extends in several dimensions the approach taken by Cunha et al
(2010). We use flexible functional form assumptions for the distribution of
factors and use an instrumental variable approach to take into account the endogeneity of investment. Using data from three waves of
two cohorts of Indian Children from the Young Lives Survey, we estimate the
production function for two dimensions of human capital: cognition and
health. The richness of the data and the fact that they cover children from
the age of 1 until the age of 15 allows us to cover a very long and important
interval, which has previously not been investigated in this fashion. We
uncover important complementarities, so that the non-linearity of the
production function is important. We also show that it is important to take
into account the endogeneity of investment.
.
with Elena Pastorino Abstract: We propose a model of price discrimination that accounts
for the nonlinearity of unit prices of basic food items in developing
countries. We model consumers subsistence constraints and allow consumers to
differ in their marginal willingness and absolute ability to pay for a good.
We also incorporate outside options from purchasing a good that depend on
consumers preferences for the good, like self-production or access to other
markets. We obtain a simple characterization of optimal nonlinear pricing and
show that nonlinear pricing leads to higher levels of consumption, lower
marginal prices, and higher consumer surplus than implied by the standard
nonlinear pricing model. We prove that a multiplicative utility version our
model is nonparametrically identified under common
assumptions, derive nonparametric and semi- parametric estimators of the
models primitives, and develop a test that formally allows to distinguish
between our model and the standard model. These estimators, as well as the
test we propose, can be easily implemented using individual-level data
commonly available for beneficiaries of conditional cash transfer programs in
developing countries. We find that the model well accounts for the data and
that at the estimated primitives, nonlinear pricing especially benefits
consumers who purchase intermediate to large quantities compared to linear
pricing. We show that failure to account for the endogeneity
of prices in the presence of heterogeneous constraints among consumers can
lead to an incorrect assessment of the impact of common policies, like cash
transfers, that affect households ability to pay. When sellers have market
power, such policies effectively increase sellers ability to price
discriminate and may thus give rise to asymmetric price changes for low and
high quantities demanded, thereby exacerbating the consumption distortions
typically associated with nonlinear pricing. These results confirm the
importance of incorporating our proposed extensions of the standard nonlinear
pricing model to evaluate the distributional effects of nonlinear pricing.
.
with Peter Levell, Hamish Low and
Virginia Sanchez-Marcos
Abstract: There is a renewed interest in the size
of labour supply elasticities and the discrepancy
between micro and macro estimates. Recent contributions have stressed the
distinction between changes in labour supply at the extensive and the
intensive margin. In this paper, we
stress the importance of individual heterogeneity and aggregation problems.
At the intensive margins, simple specifications that seem to fit the data
give rise to non-linear expressions that do not aggregate in a simple
fashion. At the extensive margin, aggregate changes in participation are
likely to depend on the cross sectional distribution of state variables when
a shock hits and, therefore, are likely to be history dependent. We tackle
these aggregation issues directly by specifying a life cycle model to explain
female labour supply in the US and estimate its various components. We
estimate the parameters of different component of the model. Our results
indicate that (i) at the intensive margin, Marshallian and Hicksian elasticities are very heterogeneous and, on average,
relatively large; (ii) Frisch elasticities are, as
implied by the theory, even larger; (iii) aggregate labour supply elasticities seem to vary over the business cycle, being
larger during recessions.
.
with Arlen Guarνn, Carlos Medina
and Costas Meghir Abstract We use experimental data on a training
program implemented in 2005 in Colombia. We match the experimental survey
data collected for evaluation purposes with administrative data and find that,
up to ten years later, the JeA program had a
positive and significant effect on the probability to work in the formal
sector. Applicants in the treatment group also contributed more months to
social security and were more likely to work for a large firm. Earnings of
treated applicants were 11.8% higher in the whole sample, and they made
larger contributions to social security. Consistently with the findings of
the short term evaluation, we find that most of the
impact on formal earnings is obtained through higher participation in the
formal sector. We compute non-parametric bounds for the impact of the program
on various percentiles of the earnings distribution and we find some
suggestive evidence that for women the program might have also increased productivity.
The evidence however is not precise enough to obtain significant lower bounds
for these effects. Throughout the analysis we compute p-values corrected for
multiple hypotheses testing. We also find that for the whole sample of
applicants, those in the treatment group have 0.315 more years of education,
and have a probability of graduating from high school 10 percent
higher than the control group. We find no significant effect on the
probability of attending college or any school program, nor
on fertility decisions, marital status or some dimensions of assortative mating. Among applicants matching to the
census of the poorest population, we find that beneficiaries are more likely
to participate in the labor market, to be employed,
and to be enrolled in a private health insurance at the time of the survey.
Finally, we find that the benefits of the JeA
program are higher than it costs, leading to an internal rate of return of at
least 22.1 percent. On the whole, the program was a
cost-effective alternative, worth to consider to bridging the transit of
youths from the informal to the formal sector in the future.
.
with Britta Augsburg and Ralph de Haas
(available soon) Abstract: In this paper, we study theoretically and empirically the
demand for microfinance loans under different contract arrangements and
different environments. In particular, we compare loans with joint liability
to loans with group liability. With a simple theoretical model, we show that
the demand for group liability loans can be larger than that for individual
liability loans in an environment in which risk averse
customers value the long run relationship with the microfinance institution.
Joint liability loans might constitute a way to diversify risk. We also show
that the demand for loans depend negatively on the riskness
of the projects. Empirically, using data from a randomized controlled trial
from Mongolia, we show that the predictions of the model hold true in the
data. We use innovative data on subjective expectations about the riskness of projects and show that the subjective riskness of projects does affect negatively the demand
for loans but the effect is muted in villages where group loans are available,
confirming the insurance role of joint liability loans.
.
with Costas Meghir and Corina Mommaerts, NBER WP No.21059
Abstract: This paper analyzes the extent to which
members of an extended family network insure each another against income
shocks. We develop a model of intertemporal
consumption that decomposes income shocks and insurance parameters into
within-family and between-family components and generates a test of
within-family partial insurance. To identify the model, we derive covariance
restrictions between income and consumption across family members and over
time. We use recent income and consumption panel data from the PSID and
exploit the intergenerational structure of the data to estimate the
parameters of the model.
.
with Andrea Bonfatti, Sagiri Kitao and Guglielmo Weber
Abstract: In this paper we study the effect of demographic transitions on the
econ- omy of Latin America and Caribbean (LAC). We
build a model of multi- regions of the world and derive the path of
macroeconomic variables includ- ing
aggregate output, capital, labor and saving rate,
as the economies face a rapid shift in the demographics. The timing and the
extent of the demo- graphic transition differ across regions. We simulate the
model in both closed economy and open economy assumptions to quantify the
roles played by the factor mobility across regions in shaping capital
accumulation and equilibrium factor prices.
.
with S. Cattan, E. Fitzsimons, C.
Meghir and M. Rubio-Codina) NBER WP. No. 20965
Abstract We examine the channels through which an early childhood intervention in
Colombia led to significant gains in cognitive and socio-emotional skills
among a sample of disadvantaged children. The program, which was randomized,
improved significantly cognition and socio-emotional skills. We estimate
production functions for cognition and socio-emotional skills as a function
of maternal and child cognition as well as material and time investments that
are treated as endogenous. The effects of the program can be explained by
increases in parental investments, which have strong effects on outcomes and
are complementary to both child and maternal cognition.
.
with Torben
Nielsen
Abstract: Using
full-population register data from Denmark, this study shows that estimates of the economic gradient in mortality depends on
the specific measure of economic resources used, where we investigate
permanent income, annual income or financial and housing wealth. Our favorite
measure is what we call 'Permanent income', that is the average level of
income over a long interval. We find that when using annual income or current
wealth, the gradient is overestimated, unless one controls for a number of
additional variables, such as education, civil status and initial health. In
the last part of the paper, we compare the results from Denmark to results
from the UK. Although the countries are very different in terms of
inequality, the estimates of the gradient we find are very similar,
suggesting that differential levels of resources (including information),
rather than inequality itself, determine the gradient in survival and
mortality.
.
with Katja Kaufmann Publications 2016
with Alison Andrew, Emla
Fitzsimons and Marta Rubio-Codina SSM- Population Health, Vol
2 (December 2016) pp95-104
.
with M. Rubio-Codina and S.
Grantham McGregor International Journal of Behavioral Development, 2016
.
with Laura Abramosky,
Kay Barron, Pedro Carneiro and George Stoye.
forthcoming in Economia,
Journal of LACEA
Abstract:
We evaluate the large scale pilot of an innovative and
major welfare intervention in Colom- bia, which
combines homes visits by trained social workers to households in extreme poverty
with preferential access to social programs. We use a randomized control
trial and a very rich dataset collected as part of the evaluation to identify
program impacts on the knowledge and take-up of social programs and the labor
supply of targeted households. We find no consistent impact of the program on
these outcomes, possibly because the way the pilot was implemented resulted
in very light treatment in terms of home visits. Importantly, administrative
data in- dicates that the program has been rolled
out nationally in a very similar fashion, suggesting that this major national
program is likely to fail in making a significant contribution to re- ducing extreme poverty. We suggest that the program
should undergo substantial reforms, which in turn should be evaluated.
.
with Luigi Pistaferri.
forthcoming in the Journal
of Economic Perspective Volume
30, Number 2—Spring 2016—Pages 1–27
.
with B. Augsburg forthcoming in Economica, 2016
Abstract: This
paper uses unique primary data to analyze and characterize the process that
generates household income of poor households in rural India. We analyze and
use data on individual subjective expectations elicited directly from the
respondents of a household survey. We describe how the data was elicited and
discuss its validity and to what degree we can trust that it reflects agents
believes about the future. We then use the responses to the subjective
answers to the expectations questions and a para-
metric assumption to fit, for each household in the sample, a probability
distribution for future income. We then use the moments we can compute from
this distribution, together with data for actual current income, to specify
and estimate a dynamic model of household income. We find that our households
face a very persistent income pro- cess: we cannot
reject the hypothesis of a random walk. Our paper is one of the first that
uses subjective expectations data to model income processes.
.
with Britta Augsburg, NBER WP 20304 (April 2014). Forthcomin in Economic Development and Cultural Change, 2016 Abstract: In a recent paper, Anagol, Etang and Karlan (2013)
consider the income generated by these owning a cow or a buffalo in two
districts of Uttar Pradesh, India. Given
the value of the animals, the net profit generated ignoring completely labour
costs, gives rise to a small positive rate of return. Once any reasonable
estimate of labour costs is added to the calculation, the rate of return is a
large negative number. The authors therefore conclude that the households
holding this type of assets do not behave according to the tenets of
capitalism. A variety of explanations, typically appealing to religious or
cultural factors have been invoked for such a puzzling fact. In this note, we
point to a much simpler
explanation that is fully consistent with rational behaviour on
the part of Indian farmers. In computing the return on cows and buffaloes,
the authors used data from a single time year. Cows and buffaloes are assets
whose return varies through time. In drought years, when fodder is scarce and
more expensive, milk production is lower and profits are low. In non-drought
years, when fodder is abundant and cheaper, milk production is higher and
profits can be considerably higher.
Therefore, the return on cows and buffaloes, like that of many stocks
traded on Wall Street, is positive in some years and negative in others. The
fact that in a given year the observed return on a risky asset is negative
could certainly not be used as a contradiction of one of the basic tenets of
capitalism. We report evidence from three years of data on the return on
cows and buffaloes in the district of Anantapur and
show that in one of the three years returns are very high, while in drought
years they are similar to the figures obtained by Anagol,
Etang and Karlan (2013).
. 2015
Abstract:
This paper is based on my presidential address for the
European Economic Association meetings held in Toulouse in August 2014. In
it, I discuss a research agenda on the study of human capital accumulation in
the early years, with a particular focus on developing countries. I discuss
several methodological issues, from the use of structural models, to the
importance of measurement and the development of new measurement tools. I
present a conceptual framework that can be used to frame the study of human
capital accumulation and view the current challenges and gaps in knowledge
within such an organizing structure. I provide an example of the use of such
a framework to interpret the evidence on the impacts of an early years
intervention based on Randomized Controlled Trial.
.
Economic
Journal, Vol 125 (583) pp. 269-294
.
with L. Pellerano and S. Polania-Reyes Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization DOI:10.1016/j.jebo.2015.04.004
.
with Marta Rubio-Codina, Costas Meghir,
Natalia Varela, and Sally Grantham- McGregor Journal of Human Resources Vol. 50(2),
Pages 464-483, Spring 2015.
(pdf)
.
with Veruska Oppedisano
and Marcos Vera-Hernandez American
Economic Journal. Applied. American Economic Association, vol. 7(2),
pages 35-52. (pdf)
.
with Britta Augsburg, Ralph De Haas, Emla
Fitzsimons and HeikeHamgart), American Economic Journal
Applied.
American Economic Association, vol. 7(1), pages 90-122. (pdf)
. 2014
with M Borella International Economic Review, vol. 55, pages 959-991,.
.
with J Hamadani; F. Tofail; S. Huda;
D. Alam; D. Ridout and S.
Grantham-McGregor Pediatrics, Vol
134 (4), (), pp.e1001-8, doi:10.1542/peds.2014-0694
.
.
with A. Ruiz
Linares et al PLOS Genetics; 10(9):e1004572.
doi:
10.1371/journal.pgen.1004572. eCollection
2014 Sep. PMID:25254375.
.
with C. Fernαndez, E. Fitzsimons,
S. M Grantham-McGregor, C. Meghir and M. Rubio-Codina,
British Medical Journal, 349:g5785
.
with L Pistaferri The American Economic Review,
Papers and Proceedings, Volume 104, Number 5, , pp. 122-126
.
with V. Lechene Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 122(1), pp.178-222, DOI:
10.1086/674968.
.
with Katja Kaufmann Journal of Development Economics , vol. 109(C), pp. 203-216.
. 2013
with V di Maro and M
Vera-Hernandez Economic Journal, Vol
123 (9) pp 1025-1058.
.
with V. DiMaro, V. Lechene and D. Phillips Journal of Development
Economics, vol.
104(C), pages 136-151.
.
with M Angelucci American Economic Journal: Economic
Policy, Vol 5(1)) pp 146-78.
. 2012
with M. Angelucci and V. DiMaro Fiscal Studies, Vol. 33(3), pp. 305-334.
.
with A Barr, JC Cardenas, G Genicot
and C Meghir American Economic Journal:
Applied Economics,
Vol. 4(2): 134–67. DOI:10.1257/app.4.2.134
.
with E. Battistin and A. Mesnard Economic Journal, , Vol 122, pp 92-124. DOI:
10.1111/j.1468-0297.2011.02473.x
.
with R. Bottazzi, H. Low, L. Neisham and M. Wakefield), Review of Economic Dynamics, , Vol.15(1),pp. 1-18, DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.red.2011.09.001.
.
with C. Meghir and A. Santiago, The Review of Economic Studies, , 79 (1): 37-66. DOI: 10.1093/restud/rdr015.
. 2011
with Bertha Briceρo and Laura
Cuesta Journal of Development
Effectiveness,
Dec. 2011 DOI: 10.1080/19439342.2011.636485.
. The impact of cash transfers to poor women in
Colombia on BMI and obesity: prospective cohort study
December
2011 with I
Forde, T. Chandola, S. Garcia and M. Marmot International Journal of Obesity, DOI: 10.1038/IJO.2011.234.
. Changes in Consumption at
Retirement, August
2011 with Emma Aguila and
Costas Meghir Review of Economics and Statistics, Vol.
93 (3, pages 1094-1099.
. Subsidizing Vocational
Training for Disadvantaged Youth in
Developing Countries: Evidence from a Randomized
Trial
July
2011 with Adriana Kugler
and Ccostas Meghir American Economic Journal, Applied, Vol. 3 (3), ,
pages 188-220.
. Risk Sharing in Private
Information Models
with Asset Accumulation
July 2011 with Nicola
Pavoni, Econometrica,
Vol.79 (4), , pages 1027-68.
. Do House Prices Drive
Consumption Growth? The Coincident
Cycles of House Prices and Consumption in the UK July 2011 with Andrew Leicester and Matthew
Wakefield Journal of the European Economic Association, Vol. 9(3), pages 399-435 .
. Intertemporal consumption choices, transaction
costs and limited participation into financial markets: reconciling
data and theory
March
2011 with
Monica Paiella,
Journal of Applied
Econometrics, Vol26
(2), pages 322-343. 2010 Consumption and
Saving: Models of Intertemporal Allocation and Their Implications for Public
Policy.
September 2010
with Guglielmo Weber Journal of Economic Literature,
48(3):693–751. DOI: 10.1257/ jel.48.3.693 (pdf)
. Mandated
Attendance at Parenting Workshops Improves Womens Healthcare Knowledge But
September
2010
with I
Forde, T Chandola and M Marmot Journal
of Epidemiology and Community Health, Vol 64, A58.
(pdf)
. Mexico in the
1990s: the Main Cross-Sectional Facts January
2010
with Chiara Binelli Review
of Economic Dynamics, Vol 13, Issue 1, Pages: 238-264. (pdf)
. Childrens
education and Work in the Presence of a Conditional Cash Transfer Program in
Rural Colombia
January 2010
with Emla Fitzsimons, An Gomez, Marta I. Rodriguez, Costas
Meghir and Alice Mesnard
Economic Development and
Cultural Change,, Vol 58(2), 181-210. (pdf)
. 2009 Building Trust? Conditional Cash Transfers
Programs and Social Capital
June 2009
with Luca Pellerano and Sandra Polania
Fiscal Studies, Vol. 30, Issue 2, Pages: 139–177.
. Oportunidades: Program Effect on
Consumption, Low Participation, and Methodological Issues April 2009 with Manuela Angelucci Economic Development and Cultural Change, , Vol57(3) pp.479-506.
. Estimating
Euler Equations with Noisy Data: Two Exact GMM Estimators
March 2009 with
S. Alan and M. Browning Journal of Applied Econometrics, , Vol 24 (2), pp.309-324.
. Booms
and Busts: Consumption, Expectations and House Prices in the UK.
February 2009 with
L. Blow, R. Hamilton and A. Leicester Economica, Vol.
76(301), pp.20-50.
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