Collective Bargaining for Women: How Unions Create Female-Friendly Jobs (with Viola Corradini and Garima Sharma). August 2025. The Quarterly Journal of Economics. [Media: 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. August 2025. Revise and resubmit: American Economic Review. [Previously circulated as: Labor Market Institutions and the Composition of Firm Compensation]
Abstract: This paper studies how collective bargaining affects both 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. [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 4,800 union-specific pay premia. Unions explain 3–4% of earnings variation. While unions raise wages on average, the standard deviation in union effects is large (6-7%). Validating our approach, wages fall in markets with higher vs. lower union premia following a nationwide right-to-work law. Linking premia to detailed data on union attributes, we find that unions with strike activity, collective bargaining agreements, internal competition, and skilled leaders secure higher wages. High-premium unions compress wage gaps by education while the average union exacerbates them. Post right-to-work, however, worker support for high-premium unions falls when between-group bargaining differentials are large. Our findings show that unions are not a monolith—their structure and actions shape their wage effects and, consequently, worker support.
Minimum Wages and Informality (with Ellora Derenoncourt, François Gerard, and Claire Montialoux). July 2025.
Abstract: How does the minimum wage affect informality? We address this question by studying major minimum wage reforms in Brazil, a country where 37% of the workforce is informal and where the real minimum wage almost doubled between 1999 and 2009. Using detailed labor force surveys and administrative data with information on formality status, we estimate large increases in the wages of informal workers employed in formal firms, who account for about half of all informal employees. We develop a methodology to quantify the passthrough of the minimum wage from the formal to the informal sector and find a nearly full passthrough. Because the wages of informal workers rise nearly in line with the increase in the minimum wage, we find a small formal-to-informal reallocation elasticity with respect to the formal wage of 0.28. Our findings illustrate how minimum wages can have large positive effects on the living standards of workers thought of as beyond the reach of labor law, who number in the hundreds of millions in developing economies.
"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)
"The Equilibrium Effects of Cross-Firm Pay Transparency: Evidence from a Wage Posting Mandate" (with Bobak Pakzad-Hurson and Bernhard Schmidpeter).
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.