Research

In recent decades, though the number of female entrepreneurs has grown, a gender gap remains. Self-confidence plays a pivotal role in understanding these differences. We examine gender and target margins in a vast dataset spanning Latin America, the Caribbean, and Sub-Saharan Africa. We use linear and interval regression analysis to estimate the relationship between gender and setting target margins. We find that female-led ventures are nearly five percentage points less likely to establish target margins compared to male-led ventures, even after adjusting for observable factors. Furthermore, ventures founded by women tend to set lower target margins than those with only male founders. These disparities could be attributed to intrinsic gender characteristics, contextual influences, and unique company traits. Given the link between profit margins and self-confidence, these findings suggest that, due to their self-assurance, typically higher, male entrepreneurs often set more ambitious goals, resulting in higher profits. To promote gender equality in entrepreneurship, policymakers, accelerators, and incubators should focus on bolstering the confidence of female entrepreneurs. 

We measure the extent of discrimination against homosexual parents by schools in Colombia using a matched-pair correspondence study. We send requests to visit private schools from parents of various sexual orientations as conveyed by their names. We track the response rate from schools and the time to reply. We find that schools are 12 percentage points (22.3%) less likely to respond to a request sent by a homosexual couple than one sent by a heterosexual one. When no information about sexual orientation is provided, the response rate decreases by 20 pp. (37%) compared to an explicitly heterosexual couple. Our findings suggest that, despite a solid legal framework that protects LGBTQ+ rights, discrimination against homosexual parents is pervasive and can have intergenerational consequences. 

Understanding jobseeker preferences---including their reservation wages and how much they value different non-wage amenities---is difficult because they are unobservable. We test four different methods for estimating these preference parameters using an experiment in a job-matching center. We find large and important differences between methods. We also estimate jobseekers' valuations of several job attributes, and explore how those valuations differ by characteristics like gender, education and length of unemployment. Among other findings, we show that in our sample of jobseekers in Egypt, women are more sensitive to long commutes, and value flexible schedules and on-site daycare more than men.

This paper studies how increases in labor standards and enforcement affect workers and their families. Using a policy in Argentina that targeted domestic workers and their employers, I find a 31% increase in formality rates of domestic workers and an increase in monthly earnings of almost 4%, despite a reduction in hours of work. I also study whether the reform produced changes among other members of domestic workers’ families. I find a substantial reduction in labor supply among children of domestic workers (especially women). 

We conducted a laboratory experiment to test the comparative statics predictions of a new approach to collective action games based on the method of stability sets. We find robust support for the main theoretical predictions. As we increase the payoff of a successful collective action (accruing to all players and only to those who contribute), the share of cooperators increases. The experiment also points to new avenues for refining the theory. We find that, as the payoff of a successful collective action increases, subjects tend to upgrade their prior beliefs as to the expected share of cooperators. Although this does not have a qualitative effect on comparative static predictions, using the reported distribution of beliefs rather than an ad hoc uniform distribution reduces the gap between theoretical predictions and observed outcomes. This finding also allows us to decompose the mechanism that leads to more cooperation into a “belief effect” and a “range of cooperation effect”. 

Although climate change is filled with uncertainties, a broad set of policies proposed to address this issue can be grouped in two categories: mitigation and adaptation. Developed countries that are better prepared to cope with climate change have stressed the importance of mitigation, which ideally requires a global agreement that is still lacking. This paper uses a theoretical framework to argue that in the absence of a binding international agreement on mitigation, Latin America should focus mainly on adaptation to cope with the consequences of climate change. This is not a recommendation that such economies indulge in free-riding. Instead, it is based on cost–benefit considerations, all else being equal. Only in the presence of a global binding agreement can the region hope to exploit its comparative advantage in the conservation and management of forests, which are a large carbon sink. The decision of which policies to implement should depend on the results of a thorough cost–benefit analysis of competing projects, yet very little is known or has been carried out in this area to date. Research should be directed toward cost–benefit analysis of alternative climate change policies. Policymakers should compare other investments that are also pressing in the region, such as interventions to reduce water and air pollution, and determine which will render the greatest benefits.

Understanding labor informality is a central issue in policymakers’ agendas across the developing world. For instance, recognizing its remarkable heterogeneity is a must in that duty. This paper studies the heterogeneity of Colombian informal labor market at the city level. Our results suggest the existence of a large heterogeneity both inside and between the main urban areas of Colombia. While in some cities informal jobs are predominantly the last resort for individuals to escape from unemployment, in others informality seems to be a choice. In addition, we observe in almost all urban areas that informal workers tend to be self-selected into informality at the top of the income distribution.

I study how weather shocks affect job search behavior. I combine daily temperature data with a survey from South Africa that includes detailed information on the methods unemployed individuals used to look for a job and their expectations about finding a job. I estimate that a 1-degree increase in the mean temperature over the month leading to the survey date increases the number of channels jobseekers use to look for a job by 1.8%. Higher temperatures increase the use of methods not employed frequently to look for work and the probability that a jobseeker will take steps towards starting their own business. I do not observe a significant change in the amount of money used to look for work, suggesting that higher temperatures induce jobseekers to diversify the channels through which they look for work and to consider switching to self-employment.

We estimate the causal effect of internal migration on crime in Indonesia by combining detailed migration data with reports of crime and violence from over 2 million local newspapers, and from individual victimization reports from nationally representative surveys. To address endogeneity in the choice to migrate, we instrument the share of migrants in a destination with rainfall shocks at the migrant origin locations. We find that a 1 percent increase in the proportion of migrants in the population leads to a 3.9 percent increase in the number of economically motivated crimes reported by local media. This is consistent with the existing literature on the effect of international migration to developed countries, but larger in magnitude. However, when using data on individual victimization from household surveys, we instead find that an increase in the share of migrants leads to a reduction in the probability that a person is a crime victim at the destination. The reduction in crime victimhood is particularly large for migrants and for women. We explore various reasons for these competing results, including reporting bias in newspapers as a source of increased crime coverage in areas with an influx of migrants, even though the number of crime victims decreases.