About Me

I am a PhD student in economics at CEMFI and a Research Affiliate at the IZA Institute of Labor Economics. I will join the Bank of Spain as a Research Economist in September 2024 after a one-year postdoctoral fellowship in the Stone Centre at UCL.

My primary research interests lie broadly in labor economics and applied econometrics. The projects I am working on also relate to other fields such as industrial organization, economics of education, and health economics.

You can contact me at micole.devera@cemfi.edu.es.

[ Download CV here ]

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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 47 Countries
  with Javier García-Brazales
  Revision requested at Labour Economics
  [ Draft ]
  Abstract

  Using a mix of household- and employer-based survey data from 47 countries, we provide novel evidence that workers in larger firms perform more analytical and interpersonal 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 17% 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 about 10% of the large firm wage premium.
• 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.

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 ]
  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.

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Teaching

Teaching Assistant at CEMFI

• Econometrics with Manuel Arellano
  Winter 2020, 2021

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

Lecturer at Ateneo de Manila University

• EC102: Basic Economics, Agrarian Reform and Taxation
  First Semester 2015-2016, Intersession 2016-2017
• EC115: Introduction to Mathematical Economics
  Second Semester 2015-2016

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References

Manuel Arellano (Main Advisor) CEMFI arellano@cemfi.es	Nezih Guner CEMFI nezih.guner@cemfi.es
Dmitry Arkhangelsky CEMFI darkhangel@cemfi.es	Jan Stuhler UC3M jan.stuhler@uc3m.es