Southern Economic Association (SEA) Annual Conference, Tampa, 2025 (scheduled).
Association for Environmental Studies and Sciences (AESS) Conference, St. Paul, 2025 (scheduled).
Association of Environmental and Resource Economists (AERE) Summer Conference, Santa Ana Pueblo, 2025.
Annual Conference of the Banco Central do Brasil (BCB), Brasília, 2025.
22nd Midwest International Economic Development Conference (MWIEDC), Urbana, 2025.
This paper examines the indirect effects of an unprecedented environmental disaster, caused by an inadequately regulated mining dam, on local labor markets in Brazil. Using matched employer-employee data and georeferenced locations of tailings dams, we compare endangered municipalities downstream of active dams with safer upstream municipalities nearby, excluding areas directly affected by actual disasters. To interpret the findings, we present a monopsony model where workers value local amenities and differ in mobility costs and labor demand. Following a preventable disaster elsewhere, results show that wages of nonfarm high-skilled workers increase by 6.6%-9.8% more downstream than upstream, along with a 6%-9.5% reduction in employment levels. We calculate that the median high-skilled worker requires at least $4,768 more per year to remain downstream. Within the high-skilled group, women and non-white workers are less likely to receive additional compensation and are more prone to relocate compared to men and white workers. For low-skilled workers, the effects on wages and employment are insignificant, suggesting high mobility costs. Limited mobility is also observed among high-skilled workers in micro establishments or with long tenure. Our findings indicate that environmental risks resulting from lax regulation increase labor costs, but mobility constraints prevent many workers from being adequately compensated for these risks.
European Winter Meetings of the Econometric Society, Virtual, 2020.
Behavioural Finance Working Group (BFWG), Queen Mary University, London, 2021.
20th Journées Louis-André Gérard-Varet (LAGV), Marseille, 2021.
5th Entrepreneurial Finance Association (ENTFIN) Conference, Virtual, 2021.
37th International Conference of the French Finance Association (AFFI), Virtual, 2021.
8th Research Centre for Economic Analysis (RCEA) Conference: Future of Growth, Waterloo, 2021.
32nd Meeting of the Academy of Entrepreneurial Finance (AEF), Los Angeles, 2021.
Financial Management Association (FMA) Annual Meeting, Denver, 2021.
How does entrepreneurs' ancestry affect their firm's performance? Based on surnames, we classify entrepreneurs in Europe and Asia into ethnic groups. For each group, we estimate the expected productivity and capital structure, controlling for size, country, and industry. Then we verify whether these ethnic effects predict firms' productivity in a multi-ethnic country overseas, Brazil. This approach accounts for differences in institutions and human capital supply, discrimination, and selection into entrepreneurship. Our results reveal a one-to-one relationship between ethnic productivity in Brazil and abroad. Ethnic influence on capital structure explains about 40-60% of this relationship, whereas management practices explain the remaining. In particular, the higher the propensity to raise short-term loans, the higher the performance. This finding is consistent with the positive disciplinary role of frequent debt repayments. To further test this hypothesis, we explore a credit expansion policy that encouraged entrepreneurs to extend debt maturity. Although this policy targeted highly productive groups, the beneficiaries presented lower performance than comparable firms.
4th Law and Economic Policy International Workshop (L&EPIW), Paris, 2019.
This paper investigates how business creation, earnings, and survival are related to incorporation and personal bankruptcy codes. In theory, individual debtor protection might either affect entrepreneurship or just prevent the incorporation of household firms. To examine this issue, I exploit the bankruptcy reform of 2005 as an exogenous reduction in the protection granted by homestead exemptions. Generous exemptions are found to encourage low-skilled entrepreneurs to sustain unincorporated firms. However, these exemptions also encourage high-skilled entrepreneurs to undertake profitable ventures. The evidence is consistent with new entrepreneurs often relying on unincorporated forms as the stepping-stone to a successful business.
Old Working Papers