Hi!đ I am a labor economist. My research fields are Labor Economics, Public Economics and Applied Econometrics. In my work, I use both design-based (reduced form) and model-based (structural) methods, and at times I design surveys to collect data with identifying variation. I received my PhD in Economics, from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Increases in shared custody after divorce in the United States
with Daniel Meyer and Marcia Carlson
This paper provides new evidence on the time trend in shared physical custody after divorce in the U.S., using eight waves of data from the Current Population Survey - Child Support Supplement. We find that the likelihood of shared custody more than doubled between divorces that occurred before 1985 and those in 2010-2014, from 12% to 28%. We show that non-Hispanic Whites and those who are more socioeconomically advantaged are more likely to have shared custody. Using more formal methods we show that the increase cannot be explained by changes in the characteristics of those divorcing; instead, we infer that this is the result of changing norms and policies that favor shared custody. Finally, this paper complements previous analyses using court record data from Wisconsin and shows that while the rate of shared custody in Wisconsin is higher than the national rate, a large increase over time has occurred in the nation as well as in Wisconsin. These changing patterns have important implications for childrenâs living arrangements and for the parental investments that children receive after their parentsâ divorce.
Labor Market Consequences of Pay-Equity Laws
with Steven Lehrer and Nuno Souso Pereira
Limited policy variation, data constraints in defining âequal workâ, and compliance issues have prevented rigorous causal analysis of pay equity laws. We address these challenges using Portugalâs 2018 legislation, which penalized firms with over 250 employees for gender wage gaps exceeding 5%. Using administrative data that links employees to industry-defined job titles within firms, we analyze its impact both within and between genders using an event study design. We find the law achieved its intended effects in some areas while generating unintended consequences in others. Jobs with initial gaps exceeding 5% saw a 9% reduction, mainly through slower male wage growth. A small fraction of jobs with negative gaps saw reduced female wage growth, closing the gap by half. However, gaps in jobs initially between 0-5% unexpectedly widened by 21% due to slower female wage growth. These unintended consequences are more pronounced in male-dominated industries and cannot be explained by productivity differences. Further, we find that firms did not change their size to evade the law, nor did it impact job gender composition, or hours worked. Our findings reveal both intended and unintended consequences of pay equity laws implemented with uniform regulatory targets: while the 5% target effectively reduced large disparities, it inadvertently widened gaps below the threshold as firms, with enforcement rules now clarified, strategically adjusted wages but not employment, offering crucial insights for policy design in achieving âequal pay for equal workâ.
Employee-Side Discrimination: Beliefs and Preferences
with Mehreen Mookerjee and Sanket Roy
Workersâ preferences and beliefs shape labor market outcomes, yet remain understudied. We develop a theory-driven novel identification strategy for information experiments that separates preferences from beliefs. We apply this to provide the first evidence on the distribution of workersâ preferences on manager gender and their beliefs on managersâ mentoring ability. In the absence of information on manager mentoring ability, workers are indifferent to manager gender. However, upon receiving information on manager mentorship ability, workers prefer to work for female managersâwilling to forgo 1.3â2.2% of average annual wages. Hence, absent additional information, workers believe female managers are worse mentors (1.6% wage equivalent). Non-parametric estimates of the distributions reveal that 75% prefer female managers with mentoring information, and 67% believe male managers are better mentors absent information. Machine learning algorithms show that individuals with higher education are less likely to hold such beliefs. These beliefs are primarily driven by perceptions that women are less competent. Evidence suggests these beliefs are likely biased, highlighting scope for information-based policy interventions that could reduce suboptimal matching and gender gaps in management levels. Our identification-driven design provides a general framework for information experiments to study beliefs.
The Unintended Benefits of Womenâs Empowerment on Household Sanitation
with Monica Agarwal
Existing research shows that women benefit more from private toilets, but misperceptions about the net benefits from toilets and lack of womenâs decision-making power can hinder toilet adoption by households. In this paper, we explore a novel link between household sanitation and policies that empower women. We show that a policy aimed at improving womenâs property inheritance rights in India led to an increase in toilet adoption in the households of treated cohorts by at least 10%. Prior literature shows mixed evidence on whether the policy increased womenâs inheritance, but shows that the policy had significant indirect effects, such as improving womenâs education. To generate empirical tests for the mechanisms driving our main results, we build a discrete choice model with idiosyncratic household preference shocks that produces policy-relevant complementarity between womenâs education and decision-making power in adoption of a household public good valued more by women. Using a heterogeneity-robust event-study design, we find that, consistent with our model, the increase in toilet adoption is concentrated in states where the policy boosted womenâs educationâplausibly reducing misperceptions about the benefits of toiletsâand increased womenâs decision-making power. Our findings highlight that policies empowering women can yield unintended benefits beyond their original scopeâwhile we document improvements in toilet coverage, the implications extend to other household investments where womenâs preferences are stronger, but various frictions limit adoption.
