Three essays in labor economics in developing countries

This dissertation focuses on three topics that pertain or are tightly related to the labor market in developing countries. After presenting an introduction to this dissertation, chapter 2 studies the way in which labor regulations and their enforcement by the government affects workers and their families, by taking advantage of a reform that took place in Argentina that reformed the labor regulations of domestic workers. The results of this study suggest that the analysis of labor regulations should also take into account how the affect other members of the worker's household to avoid underestimating their entire impact. In chapter 3 we study how workers value different job amenities and the most appropriate way to estimate these valuations using survey data. This was done by fielding a survey to job seekers in Egypt where respondents are randomly assigned to a different method to elicit their valuation for several non-wage job attributes. We find large difference across elicitation methods in the value assigned to the job attributes we consider. Moreover, some of these elicitation methods present various shortcomings that should be considered before being used in surveys, even leading to estimates for certain attributes having the opposite sign that would be expected by economic theory. Finally, in chapter 4 we focus on a topic that is directly connected to the labor market by studying how migration affects both the incidence of crime and its media coverage. We find that, even though the number of crimes covered by newspapers increase in areas that receive larger influxes of migrants, the likelihood that a person is victim of a crime actually decreases. This finding could provide an insight on why public perceptions of the effects of migration systematically differ from the empirical evidence.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Economics

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2020

Author dc:creator

• Feld, Brian

Contributors dc:contributor

• Thornton, Rebecca
• Powers, Elizabeth
• Kleemans, Marieke
• Osman, Adam

• Labor economics Developing countries

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright 2020 Brian Feld

Language dc:language

en

Handle dc:identifier

http://hdl.handle.net/2142/108129

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/108129