"Anticipated Discrimination and Wage Negotiation: A Field Experiment"
New version! [Revise & Resubmit: Management Science]
with Gary Charness, Ramón Cobo-Reyes, Simone Meraglia, and Ángela Sánchez
This paper proposes a field experiment to study whether potential anticipation of gender discrimination affects requested wages. People interested in an advertised position can apply using an online portal. After the initial application, participants are randomly allocated to one of three treatments. In the baseline treatment, applicants are asked to fill in a standardized curriculum vitae template, containing information about the applicant’s first name, surname, age, education, and employment. In a gender-blind treatment, applicants complete a curriculum vitae template in which they can only report their initials, so that information about gender is not transmitted. We also conduct a gender-blind treatment in which applicants receive a message emphasizing that the selection is conducted based on merits. In all treatments, applicants request the hourly wage they wish to receive if hired.
We find that female applicants ask for just over half the wage requested by male applicants when the full name is revealed. However, when gender is undisclosed this difference in requests decreases by over 50%. Finally, the reinforcing message (third treatment) causes the gap in requested wages to completely disappear. Our results indicate that female workers request much lower wages when the firm clearly knows the applicant’s gender, but that this lower request is dependent on whether they perceive that one’s gender is known to the hiring firm.
"Cognitive Dominance in U.S. Labor Markets: Harmonizing Task Intensities, 1980–2014"
New version! [Revise & Resubmit: LABOUR]
This paper constructs harmonized, multi-dimensional measures of occupational task intensities for the United States from 1980-2014 by reconciling the Dictionary of Occupational Titles and O*NET. The resulting indices allow task intensities to vary within occupations over time and are linked to Census and ACS microdata. I document a pronounced rise in the importance of cognitive tasks -cognitive dominance- driven by both increasing task intensity and higher associated wage gradients. This mechanism helps explain three major labor-market trends: wage polarization, the rising college wage premium, and the narrowing gender wage gap, with most task changes occurring within occupations.
"Job rotation and workers’ performance: Experimental evidence" [Submitted]
with Ramón Cobo-Reyes, and Jose M. Ortiz
This paper examines job rotation as a non-monetary incentive to boost workers’ performance. Using a controlled experiment, participants were randomly assigned to treatments and divided into workers and managers. In the Baselinetreatment, workers received a fixed payment to complete one of two tasks: (i) finding letters or (ii) adding numbers. The task assigned to a worker remains fixed during the experiment. Managers, who had no assigned tasks, earned their payoff based on workers’ performance. In the Competitive Rotation Treatment (CRT), workers competed for the opportunity to choose their preferred task. Performance-based task rotation significantly increases productivity and sustains these gains over time. To better understand the mechanisms underlying this effect, two additional treatments are conducted in which workers are reallocated across tasks based on stated preferences. Task assignment priority is determined by performance in one treatment and randomly in the other. Both sorting mechanisms outperform the baseline, with competitive sorting performing better than random in groups where most workers prefer the same task.
"The Anatomy of the China Shock" [New version coming out soon!]
This paper studies how manufacturing establishments adjust their internal occupational mix in response to trade shocks that alter the relative prices of workers performing different tasks. Using establishment-level data from the Occupational Employment Statistics linked to task measures from O*NET, I estimate the effect of increased import competition from China on task intensities within U.S. manufacturing establishments between 2002 and 2017. I find that establishments in more exposed industries reallocate employment toward manual and routine tasks and away from cognitive and interpersonal tasks, alongside declines in average education and experience. These patterns are consistent with short-run substitution toward relatively cheaper labor when capital adjustment is limited. In contrast, over the same period establishments exhibit a strong trend toward routine-biased technical change, highlighting opposing short-run effects of trade shocks and longer-run technological change within firms.
"Beyond Labor Market Polarization" [New version coming out soon!]
It is well documented that routine-biased technical change ("RBTC") led to labor market polarization during 1980-2000. In particular, the employment and wages of non-routine occupations, which include low-wage manual and high-wage cognitive ones, increased relative to routine occupations. I document that during 2000-2016, wage polarization stopped in that the wages of non-routine manual occupations fell in relative and absolute terms. I study the end of wage polarization through the lens of a dynamic general equilibrium model with RBTC, human capital accumulation, and occupational mobility. I find that during 2000-2016, RBTC continued to take place, but human capital accumulation and occupational mobility changed. In particular, compared to workers in routine occupations, workers in non-routine manual occupations had lower initial human capital and accumulated less human capital whereas workers in cognitive occupations had more initial human capital and accumulated more human capital than before. During 1980-2000 the changes in the human capital accumulation of the occupations were similar to those during 2000-2016, but during the second period mobility across occupations fell, which magnified the differences in human capital accumulation and led to the end of wage polarization.
"The Effect of Paternalistic Decisions on Children's Self-Esteem and Long-term Decision-making Processes: Evidence from Rural Thailand" [Draft coming out soon!]
with Ramon Cobo-Reyes Cano, Weerachart T. Kilenthong, and Mathias Sutter
We study how parental delegation affects children’s decision-making. In a field experiment with parent–child pairs in rural Thailand, parents are randomly assigned to retain decision rights, delegate decisions to their child, or have no authority. Across domains including time, risk, competition, and social preferences, we find that delegation affects children’s choices in a domain-specific way. Delegated children display greater patience in intertemporal choices and are more likely to choose safe options in risky environments, while competitive and social preferences remain largely unaffected. Delegation also reduces the distance between children’s choices and parents’ preferences, despite children not observing those preferences. The results highlight how autonomy and parental involvement interact in shaping children’s economic decision-making.
"The Effect of Personality Traits and Expectations on the Acquisition of Human Capital: A focus on STEM"
with Esteban Aucejo, Ramon Cobo-Reyes Cano, and Andrés Gago
Workers in different occupations perform different tasks or activities. To execute these tasks, workers must applyparticular skills. Having the right skills is crucial since a mismatch between a person’s actual skills and those required in the labor market can lead to lower job opportunities and wages. Since a significant fraction of the required skills is obtained through schooling decisions studying schooling choices is critical to understand the accumulation of human capital and labor market outcomes. Despite significant contributions to the understanding on how the tasks that workers perform determine their well-being and to the understanding of schooling choices and the process of human capital accumulation, the connection between these two remains a “black box.” This project aims to analyze the role that different factors play on schooling decisions and human capital accumulation and their connection to tasks that students would perform in the labor market, with a focus on .on tasks classified as science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) since these are more complementary with new technologies and, thus, are generally more important in high-paying jobs with better job opportunities.
"Global Talents Flows within Multinational Firms"
with Germán Cubas and Pedro Silos
This project investigates how multinational firms shape international migration patterns by reallocating workers across borders within their own organizations. Building on a broader research agenda on the determinants of global migration patterns, it examines an often-overlooked dimension of mobility: cross-country career moves within firms. Using LinkedIn microdata from Revelio Labs, the study will document the prevalence and characteristics of these internal migrations -distinguishing between temporary assignments, return moves, and permanent relocations- and analyze how they vary by workers’ age, education, and occupation.
In this project, we aim to tackle the following questions:
Do these transitions serve as human capital accumulation, allowing workers to gain experience or advance their career both within and outside the firm?
What are the drivers behind the emergence of countries that act as hubs where firms tend to concentrate their activities and reallocate their workers towards?
Does this reallocation of workers across within firms across countries reflect firms’ profit maximizing behavior to exploit capital-skill complementarities across countries, as highlighted in recent trade and labor literature?
"Leveling the Playing Field? AI and Gender Differences in Competition"
with Ramon Cobo-Reyes Cano, Andrés Gago, and Francis Lagos
This project examines whether access to artificial intelligence (AI) tools can influence gender differences in competitiveness and career advancement decisions. Despite substantial progress in education and labor market participation, gender gaps in competitiveness persist and contribute to differences in promotion rates, leadership representation, and wages. At the same time, the rapid diffusion of AI technologies such as ChatGPT is transforming knowledge work by lowering barriers to performing cognitively demanding tasks and reducing uncertainty about individual performance. This project aims to provide the first systematic evidence on whether AI affects individuals’ willingness to compete -such as choosing a tournament over a fixed wage- and whether it narrows the gender gap in competitive behavior and expectations about promotion. By studying how AI assistance shapes competitive choices, the project contributes to understanding the interaction between technological change and gender inequality in the labor market.
"Economic Conditions, Labor Market Perspectives and High School Drop Outs in Uruguay"
with Emiliano Tealde
One of the major problems in the Uruguayan educational system is the dropout of high school students, which in the last two decades has consistently been above 40%. The main objective of this project is to obtain a better understanding of the causes behind high school dropout in Uruguay. The project aims to answer two research questions. The first one, what is the impact of current economic conditions on student dropout?; the second, what is the impact of beliefs about future labor market conditions and student expectations on student dropout? The project uses two research designs. To find an answer to the first question, the project will use a design based on structural models and reduced form using data from the Continuous Household Survey (ECH) and administrative data. To address the second question posed and thus delve into the causes behind dropout, information experiments will be conducted.