Research

Working Papers

How Much Can You Make? Misprediction and Biased Memory in Gig Jobs [Draft]

Abstract: Flexibility is an increasingly prominent feature of many jobs. In the gig economy, workers can choose their work hours and face wages that vary across hours and weeks. This increased complexity adds challenges to predicting and understanding job outcomes. Incomplete information or behavioral biases can then lead to inaccurate beliefs about pay and labor supply. We test this hypothesis by collecting novel survey data on 454 delivery and ride share gig workers in the United States. Comparing gig workers’ beliefs with data on their actual job performance, we find they overestimate their predictions (43%) and their recalls (31%) of weekly pay, despite it being reported prominently in their earnings statements. Furthermore, gig workers underestimate expenses and overestimate hours worked. The results are consistent with selective recall: when forming and updating their beliefs in noisy environments, workers overweight past high-paying periods. We then examine how biased beliefs affect labor market decisions. We derive predictions from a behavioral labor supply model and test them. We conclude that job choices and labor supply decisions are likely influenced by mistaken beliefs in flexible gig jobs.

Can Laws Change Social Norms? Evidence from Domestic Workers in Brazil [Draft]

Abstract: We examine a 2013 constitutional amendment in Brazil that ensured equal labor rights for domestic workers. The amendment did not include any enforcement mechanism and increased the costs of formalizing domestic workers. However, the majority of the law was not enforceable for over two years. At the same time, the amendment was accompanied by intense media coverage and public interest. Our hypothesis is that this changed social norms: employing an informal domestic worker became perceived more negatively by both employers and employees. Based on an event study framework, we find that the formalization rate of domestic workers increased by between 2 and 4 percentage points after the amendment. Further, more domestic workers started being paid the minimum wage. To test whether changing social norms is a likely mechanism for our findings, we estimate a series of triple difference estimators, using variation in factors likely to amplify the effect of changing social norms. We first find that domestic workers that live with their employer formalized at much higher rates during this period. In addition, domestic workers have larger formality treatment effects when surrounded by more domestic workers and by more formalization events in their neighborhood.

Selected Work in Progress

Finding the Perfect Hire: Screening Strategies and Job Match Quality (with Priscila De Oliveira and Ben Scuderi)

Abstract: This paper examines how companies make recruitment decisions and how these decisions align with post-hiring productivity. We use a novel dataset that links proprietary data from a hiring platform in Brazil covering over 20 million job applications with matched employer-employee labor market data. We begin by analyzing how offer decisions relate to applicant characteristics assessing implicit weights placed on, for example, education, past experience, and demographics. We then evaluate how well firm offers predict post-hiring outcomes, including turnover, tenure, and salary growth. We then use machine learning models to directly predict productivity based on job applicant hiring characteristics. We identify possible inefficiencies in hiring practices by comparing firms’ actual offer decisions to our predictions from machine learning models. Finally, we investigate when these divergences occur, first exploring which characteristics correlate with them the most. We then discuss mechanisms such as stereotyping, discrimination, and complexity in decision-making.

Signaling Creativity: How Idea Contests Shape Employee Trajectories (with Priscila de Oliveira)

Abstract: This study examines the impact of firm-level innovation contests on employee outcomes, using novel data from a large company in Brazil linked to an employer-employee matched dataset. In innovation contests, workers propose changes to current firm practices. Ideas are then evaluated internally by a panel of specialists. We explore whether these contests allow workers in non-creative roles to signal creativity and how idea submission and acceptance influence career trajectories, including promotions, salary growth, and transitions to more creative roles within the firm.

How Recruiters Make Decisions: Unpacking the Drivers of Discrimination (with Priscila de Oliveira)

Behavioral Determinants of Consumer Reactions to Product Size Changes (with Lucio Wasserman)