Research

• Relative-Wage Concerns and Wage Compression Under Collective Bargaining

With Trang Tran Thanh

Abstract: Many countries set minimum wages by occupation for both skilled and unskilled workers. Changes in these wage floors can induce wage compression within firms and reduce the skill premium. We examine the effects of this institution in the Tunisian banking sector, where a 2014 national collective bargaining agreement resulted in substantial wage compression in some branches. We find modest overall employment effects masking substantial heterogeneity by age and skill level. Hires of unskilled young workers increase, while skilled young workers separate and move to banks with higher skill premia, suggesting they quit. Survey results confirm that younger skilled workers are more sensitive to wage compression. We interpret our results through a model of monopsony with binding wage floors and relative-wage concerns. Our results challenge the view that occupation-specific wage floors are the cause of high levels of youth unemployment in settings like Tunisia and highlight a novel channel through which they shape labor market dynamics.

Published Journal Articles

• Promoting Innovative Startups: Quasi-Experimental Evidence from Tunisia 

With Massimiliano Cali and Bob Rijkers

Journal of Development Economics, Volume 177, 2025, 103539, ISSN 0304-3878

Abstract: This paper evaluates Tunisia’s “Startup Act,” a policy initiative to foster innovative firms through a “start-up” label and a bundle of incentives including reduced social security contributions, corporate tax exemptions, easier access to foreign exchange, and simplified customs procedures. Detailed data on the program’s selection process allow us to identify marginal entrants and rejects, and hence limit selection on unobservables. Using a difference-in-differences strategy, the program is shown to increase survival and promote job creation. A back of the envelope cost–benefit calculation suggests that the program is cost effective.

Working Papers

• What Do Market-Access Subsidies Do? Experimental Evidence from Tunisia (R&R at the American Economic Review)

With Giacomo De Giorgi, Aminur Rahman, and Eric Verhoogen

CEPR Discussion Paper No. 20398. CEPR Press, Paris & London.

NBER working paper No. 33985

Abstract: Many countries seek to promote exports by subsidizing market access, but evidence on such efforts has been mixed. We present the first randomized evaluation of a government financial-support program explicitly targeting exports, the Tasdir+ program in Tunisia. The program offered matching grants for fixed market-access costs but not variable costs. Tracking outcomes in administrative data, we find positive effects on exports on average. We find limited impacts on the number of destinations or exported products, which were stated policy targets. The finding that the fixed-cost subsidies expanded exports on the intensive margin but not the extensive margins of destinations or products stands in contrast to the predictions of several workhorse trade models.

Teaching

Columbia University: 

Principles of Economics (TA, Spring 2024, Fall 2024)

Introduction to Econometrics (TA, Fall 2021, Spring 2022)

Intermediate Microeconomics (TA, Fall 2023)

Behavioral Economics (TA, Fall 2022)

Harvard Kennedy School: 

Advanced Microeconomic Analysis II  (CA, Fall 2017)