Research

''Women's Labor Force Participation and the Business Cycle" [Paper]

Abstract: This paper studies the macroeconomic implications of the rise in participation and attachment to the labor force of women and secondary earners. I develop a business cycle model of couples that features labor market frictions, endogenous labor supply, and human capital accumulation. Households face unemployment risk over the business cycle, and secondary earners adjust their labor supply to respond to this risk, so that they are more likely to participate when primary earners are unemployed or face a high risk of job loss. I validate the model using novel empirical evidence documenting that women with higher labor market experience are more likely to respond. A large mass of marginal secondary earners will dampen fluctuations in aggregate employment if in downturns the income effect induced by unemployment is greater than the substitution effect due to lower wages. The magnitude of the counter-cyclical effect is proportional to the distance from the participation frontier of secondary earners, which in turn depends on the gap in net wages between partners. For a gender gap smaller than 20%, aggregate labor supply elasticity of women converges to that of men, and the dampening effect wanes.

Presentations: Normac, SED, LMU Munich, EUI (2024); Deutsche Bundesbank, Queen Mary, Barcelona School of Economics Summer Forum, CU Boulder, University of California Santa Cruz, University of Houston, Rice University, Duke University Fuqua School of Business, NY FED, Goethe University, Stockholm IIES, University of St. Gallen, CREI/UPF, LUISS University, University of Rome Tor Vergata, Bank of Italy, European Central Bank (2023); University of Pennsylvania (2021, 2022); Federal Reserve Board (2021).

"Disclosure Regulation, Intangible Capital, and the Disappearance of Public Firms" (with Hanbaek Lee and Sergio Villalvazo) [Paper] [Appendix] [Feds Working Paper] (reject & resubmit at Journal of Economic Theory)

Abstract: Since the mid-1990s, the number of listed firms in the U.S. has halved, and their performance has become increasingly difficult to predict. To explain these trends, we develop a general equilibrium model where the choices of going public or private and the transparency of voluntary disclosure are characterized analytically. In the equilibrium, dispersion in transparency, funding, and public or private status arises endogenously. According to the estimation, stricter disclosure regulation and increased intangible capital share are the key drivers of the observed patterns. Lastly, we characterize a policymaker’s trade-off between welfare and productivity and analyze the optimal policy.

Presentations:  Barcelona School of Economics Summer Forum (2024); Riksbank, NFA Meetings*, North American Summer Meeting of the Econometric Society*, Singapore Management University*, National University of Singapore* (2023); Federal Reserve Board* , Midwest Macroeconomics Conference, Lisbon Macro Workshop, ITAM-PIER Conference on Macroeconomics and Finance*, Hitotsubashi University*, BIS-CEPR WE_ARE_IN Macroeconomics and Finance Conference (2022)

"Parental Health, Aging, and the Labor Supply of Young Workers"  (with Luca Mazzone) [Paper][SSRN]

Abstract: To what extent are young workers affected by health shocks that happen to their parents? This paper studies the short and long-term spillover effects of parents' adverse health events on their adult children. We use the unique structure of the Panel Survey on Income Dynamics (PSID) to build family networks and construct a measure of sudden health changes. Exploiting news on parents' health status, we provide evidence of the existence of family insurance in the form of time and monetary transfers, and of the importance of family ties in shaping labor market outcomes. Following the deterioration of parents' health, time spent helping them goes up, while income and hours worked by children significantly decline. 

Presentations:  SED (2024); EEA-ESEM 2023, Barcelona School of Economics Summer Forum*, Society of Economics of the Household (SEHO)*; Society of Labor Economists (SOLE)* (2023); Midwest Macro Fall* (2022).

Work in Progress

''Structural Estimation of Dynamic Equilibrium Models with Unstructured Data'' (with Jesús Fernández-Villaverde, Stephen Hansen, Ryohei Oishi, and Minchul Shin) 

Presentations:  Bank of England Big Data and Machine Learning Conference (2019), ASSA Annual Meeting* (2020)

''Firm-level Wage Policies and the Gender Wage Gap'' (with Giulia Vattuone)

Financed by Jan Wallander's and Tom Hedelius' foundation and Tore Browaldh's foundation.

''Income Pooling and Within Household Risk-Sharing: Evidence from Data on Individual Expenditures'' (with Luigi Ventura)