← volver

SEMINARIOS ACADEMICO CEA-MIPP: «Jobless Modernity», Marcela Eslava (Los Andes, Colombia)

Los invitamos al ciclo de  SEMINARIOS ACADEMICO CEA-MIPP:

Cuándo: Miércoles 30 de septiembre – 13:00 PM Santiago.

Dónde: Sala Consejo (401) – Beauchef 851, piso 4 | Departamento de Ingeniería Industrial.

Title: « Jobless Modernity«

Authors: with Laura Alfaro, Martí Mestieri and Felipe Sáenz

Speaker: Marcela Eslava (Los Andes, Colombia)

Abstract:

Modern firms in developing economies contribute far more to income than to employment. While scarce modern employment is often attributed to weak economic activity, high-quality job creation can lag behind value-added growth when the firms driving it face distortions against labor or adopt labor-saving technologies. Using a general-equilibrium model with constrained occupational choice across occupations in traditional and modern production, and comprehensive micro-data for an emerging economy, we assess the importance of these channels. Distortions differ in the strength of their effects across margins: non-labor distortions mainly compress aggregate income, while labor distortions mainly govern access to modern jobs. Because access affects wages and determines who enters modern employment, it governs both employment and the distribution of earnings. We use fifty years of Colombian microdata representative of the universe of private firms and workers, both formal and informal, as well as direct measures of labor distortions. We estimate modern firms’ wedges on revenue and capital, jointly with technology and demand, and embed them in the model. The jobless modernity gap, measured as the difference between the share of firms with at least ten workers in total occupational income and their share of jobs, is 51 percentage points in Colombia. From 1971 to 2019, distortions explain 40 to 60 percent of this gap,  and labor distortions make up 70 percent of that share. They reduce income for all occupational groups and contribute to inequality by opening a large income gap between the middle class and workers in the traditional sector.

*No olviden confirmar asistencia, para coordinar la solicitud de almuerzos* a obarrera@dii.uchile.cl