Collective Bargaining for Women: How Unions Create Female-Friendly Jobs (with Viola Corradini and Garima Sharma). August 2025. The Quarterly Journal of Economics. [Media: VoxDev; InequaliTalks]
Abstract: We study the role of unions in improving workplaces for women. Starting in 2015, Brazil's largest trade union federation made women central to its agenda. Using a difference-in-differences design that leverages variation in unions' affiliation to this federation, we find that "bargaining for women" increased female-friendly amenities in collective bargaining agreements, which were then reflected in practice. These changes led women to queue for jobs at treated establishments and separate from them less—both revealed preference measures of firm value. We find no evidence that these gains came at the expense of workers' wages, employment, or firm profits. Instead, better amenities lowered turnover and absenteeism, suggesting increased worker satisfaction and effort. Our findings show that shifting union priorities towards women improved workplaces without meaningful trade-offs, and instead benefited both workers and employers. Larger improvements occurred where women were initially a lower share of workers or union leaders, indicating the potential for unions to improve workplace quality by focusing on the needs of less represented workers.
Assortative Matching or Exclusionary Hiring? The Impact of Firm Policies on Racial Wage Differences in Brazil (with François Gerard, Edson Severnini, and David Card). October 2021. American Economic Review.
Abstract: We measure the effects of firm policies on racial pay differences in Brazil. Non-Whites are less likely to be hired by high-wage firms, explaining about 20 percent of the racial wage gap for both genders. Firm-specific pay premiums for non-Whites are also compressed relative to Whites, contributing another 5 percent for that gap. A counterfactual analysis reveals that about two-thirds of the underrepresentation of non-Whites at higher-wage firms is explained by race-neutral skill-based sorting. Non-skill-based sorting and differential wage setting are largest for college-educated workers, suggesting that the allocative costs of discriminatory hiring and pay policies may be relatively large in Brazil.
Union Bargaining Power and the Amenity-Wage Tradeoff. February 2026. Accepted: American Economic Review. [Previously circulated as: Labor Market Institutions and the Composition of Firm Compensation]
Abstract: This paper studies how collective bargaining affects wages and amenities. By merging collective bargaining agreements (CBAs) to linked employer-employee data in Brazil, I combine rich contracted amenities with wage information. I implement a difference-in-difference strategy that exploits a court ruling enforcing CBA continuation (i.e., ultractivity) to estimate the effects of union bargaining power. Strengthening unions raises wages and amenities without reducing employment—increasing retention despite some labor-labor substitution. A revealed preference approach shows that amenities account for 45% of total compensation gains. These findings suggest that collective bargaining can offset monopsony power, but employers retain the right-to-manage workforce composition.
What Do (Thousands of) Union Do? Union-Specific Pay Premia and Inequality (with Ellora Derenoncourt, François Gerard, and Claire Montialoux). August 2025: new version coming soon! [Online appendix]
Abstract: We study the role of union heterogeneity in shaping wages and inequality among unionized workers. Using linked employer-employee data from Brazil and job moves across multi-firm unions, we estimate over 4,700 union-specific pay premia. Unions raise pay by 2.7 log points on average, but heterogeneity is substantial with a standard deviation of 6.7 log points and the variance in union premia accounting for 10% of the variance attributed to AKM establishment effects. Because lower-skill workers sort positively into unions, this heterogeneity does not compress wages. Compression arises instead within unions, through differential bargaining across high- and low-education workers (2.4 log points on average). Across unions, raising pay and compressing wages are complementary objectives. These high-pay, high-compression unions are distinguished by strikes, firm-level collective agreements, contested internal elections, and skilled leadership. Analyzing union effects after a right-to-work reform, we find that the average premium shrinks by 44%. The steepest declines in premia arise among the most compressing unions, whose unequal rent-sharing appears to undermine the broad worker support that financing from voluntary contributions requires. Union heterogeneity therefore carries distributional stakes that average effects conceal: which union represents a worker shapes their pay, and policies that weaken unions can do so unevenly.
Minimum Wages and Informality (with Ellora Derenoncourt, François Gerard, and Claire Montialoux). July 2026. [Media: VoxEU]
Abstract: How do minimum wages affect informality? We study the near-doubling of the real minimum wage from 2000 to 2009 in Brazil, where 46% of the workforce is informal. Using labor force surveys covering the informal sector, we show that the minimum wage increases wages for informal employees, with an effect about two-thirds the size of that on formal employees. Wage gains are especially pronounced in areas with greater enforcement capacity, among industries with a low share of informality, and for informal workers with a greater number of formal outside options. In light of these wage spillovers in the informal sector, reallocation away from formal employment is muted: a 10% gain in formal sector wages from the minimum wage translates to 2.8% of workers reallocated from formal to other forms of employment. Examining heterogeneity across workers, reallocation is smaller precisely where wage gains to informal workers are larger, a pattern that contrasts with many existing models of informality.
"Sham Unions: Evidence from the USMCA's Rapid Response Mechanism" (with Raquel Badillo Salas and Jorge Pérez Pérez).
"Leading with Equality: Union Board Gender Representation and its Impact on Maternity Leave Take-up and Employment Trajectories" (with Raquel Badillo Salas and Jorge Pérez Pérez).
"The Union-Politics Pipeline" (with Ricardo Dahis).
"Racial Inequality, Minimum Wage Spillovers, and the Informal Sector" (with Ellora Derenoncourt, François Gerard, and Claire Montialoux)
Violence and Credit Use: Evidence from MSEs in Mexico’s Drug War. Trabajo de investigación para la Comisión Nacional Bancaria y de Valores (CNBV). 2019.
Institutional Trust: The Case Study of Mexican State Institutions. SPICE: Student Perspectives on Institutions, Choices and Ethics. 2012.