About Me
I am a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Stone Centre at University College London (UCL). I am also a Research Affiliate at the IZA Institute of Labor Economics. In September 2024, I will join the Bank of Spain as a Research Economist.
I received my PhD in Economics from CEMFI under the supervision of Manuel Arellano. My primary research interests lie broadly in labor economics, firm dynamics, and applied econometrics.
You can contact me at micole.devera@ucl.ac.uk.
[ Download CV here ]
Research
Working Papers
- Firm-Level Productivity and Demand Shocks in Imperfectly Competitive Labor Markets: Implications for Wage Dynamics (JMP)
[ Draft ]
Abstract
I build a novel framework to empirically disentangle productivity from demand shocks at the firm level and measure their pass-through to worker wages. Measuring the pass-through of firm-level shocks contributes to understanding how firms affect wage inequality and wage dynamics. My analysis leverages a unique Portuguese data set that combines matched employer-employee data, financial statements data, and firm-product information on quantities and prices. The productivity, demand, and labor market advantages processes are inferred from observed data. I find substantial cross-sectional heterogeneity across firms along these three dimensions. Moreover, these features of the firm evolve in rich, nonlinear ways. Most firms have highly persistent states for most shocks, but poor-performing firms with large positive shocks have much less persistent states. In an environment with wage adjustment costs, I find that wages are not adjusted in response to productivity shocks, whereas I estimate positive pass-through elasticities to demand shocks. There is suggestive evidence that pass-throughs of adverse demand shocks are larger than those of good ones. Moreover, the pass-through of good demand shocks is larger for firms with better positions in their respective labor markets.
- Firm Size and the Task Content of Jobs: Evidence from 46 Countries
with Javier García-Brazales
[ Draft ]
Abstract
Using a mix of household- and employer-based survey data from 46 countries, we provide novel evidence that workers in larger firms perform more non-routine analytical and routine cognitive tasks, even within narrowly defined occupations. Moreover, workers in larger firms rely more on the use of information and communication technologies (ICT) to perform these tasks. We also document a 10-20% wage premium that workers in larger firms enjoy relative to their counterparts in smaller firms. A mediation analysis shows that our novel empirical facts on the task content of jobs are able to explain between 5-20% of the large firm wage premium, a similar fraction to what can be explained by selection of workers on education, gender, and age.
- Early Labor Market Origins of Long-Term Mental Health and its Intergenerational Correlation
with Javier García-Brazales and Jiayi Lin
[ Draft ]
Abstract
What drives long-term mental health and its intergenerational correlation? Exploiting variation in unemployment rates upon labor market entry across Australian states and cohorts, we provide novel evidence of persistent effects on mental health two decades after labor market entry. We find that individuals exposed to a one percentage point higher unemployment rate at labor market entry relative to trend have 14% of a standard deviation worse mental health at ages 36–40. We further document an intergenerational impact of labor market entry conditions. Along the extensive margin, females more impacted by labor market entry conditions in terms of mental health increase completed fertility. Along the intensive margin, daughters whose parents experienced a one percentage point higher unemployment rate at entry have 18% of a standard deviation worse mental health during adolescence. Sons’ mental health is not impacted.
- The Impact of Firm Performance on Macroeconomic Outcomes: Evidence from Serial Entrepreneurs
with Sónia Félix, Sudipto Karmakar, and Petr Sedláček
[ Draft ]
Abstract
Why are some firms more successful than others and how does this shape aggregate outcomes? To address these questions, we use unique administrative data, exploiting information on serial entrepreneurs (owners of multiple firms) as impersonations of business success. First, we document that serial entrepreneurs are three times more likely to own high-growth firms ("gazelles") and that their businesses disproportionately contribute to aggregate productivity growth, job creation and business dynamism. Second, we show that the success of serial entrepreneurs can largely be traced back to two key sources: their innate characteristics (primarily education and ability) and lower indebtedness of their firms.
Publication
- Income Risk Inequality: Evidence from Spanish Administrative Records
with Manuel Arellano, Stéphane Bonhomme, Laura Hospido, and Siqi Wei
Quantitative Economics (13)4: 1747-1801, 2022
[ DOI | Draft | Slides | Code ]
Media coverage: El Confidencial (in Spanish) [ 2021, 2022a, 2022b ], Cinco Días [ 2023 ]
Abstract
In this paper we use administrative data from the social security to study income dynamics and income risk inequality in Spain between 2005 and 2018. We construct individual measures of income risk as functions of past employment history, income, and demographics. We document that income risk is highly unequal in Spain: more than half of the economy has close to perfect predictability of their income, while some face considerable uncertainty. Income risk is inversely related to income and age, and income risk inequality increases markedly in the recession. These findings are robust to a variety of specifications, including using neural networks for prediction, and allowing for individual unobserved heterogeneity.
Teaching
Teaching Assistant at CEMFI
Instructor at CEMFI
- Introduction to Stata for Undergraduate Summer Interns (3h course)
Summer 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022
[ Materials ]
- Introduction to R for Undergraduate Summer Interns (1.5h course)
Summer 2019
- EC102: Basic Economics, Agrarian Reform and Taxation
First Semester 2015-2016, Intersession 2016-2017
- EC115: Introduction to Mathematical Economics
Second Semester 2015-2016
Public Goods
- Wage models with two-sided heterogeneity [ Slides (2023) ]
- Intro to Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) methods [ Slides (2021) ]
- Intro to the Newton-Raphson Algorithm with Matlab code [ PDF (2021) ]
References