Seminario de Microeconomía Aplicada - What Workers Want: the Value of Benefits, Stability, Protection, and Career Prospects

Abstract: This paper examines why informality remains widespread in Mexico and Colombia, where roughly half of workers lack formal employment benefits. Using four discrete choice experiments with nationally representative samples of full-time workers (N≈7,650), we estimate workers’ valuations of formal-sector benefits and long-term employment trajectories. Results show that workers value gaining access to benefits more than increases in benefit generosity. Valuations differ across countries, reflecting the strength of noncontributory alternatives: health insurance is most valued in Mexico, while pensions are most valued in Colombia. Life-history experiments further reveal substantial premiums for long-run formality, employment continuity, insurance protection, and reduced institutional uncertainty.

About the exhibitor: Brenda Samaniego de la Parra is an Assistant Professor in Economics at the University of Notre Dame, Keough School of Global Affairs. She received her PhD in Economics from the University of Chicago in 2017 and was a Visiting Scholar at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. She is a labor economist interested in worker and firm dynamics, as well as development topics. Her research uses micro-level data to understand how firms and workers meet, and the determinants of the types of contracts they engage in. She has published in well recognized scientific journals as American Economic Journal, Labour Economics, among others.

Exposure time: 1 hora y 30 minutos.