Benefits and Unintended Consequences of Gender Segregation in Public Transportation: Evidence from Mexico City’s Subway System, with Emilio Gutierrez and Paula Soto. Economic Development and Cultural Change, 64 (4), pp. 1379-1410. July 2021.
Abstract
Public transportation is a basic everyday activity. Costs imposed by violence might have far-reaching consequences. We conduct a survey and exploit the discontinuity in the hours of operation of a program that reserves subway cars exclusively for women in Mexico City. The program seems to be successful at reducing sexual harassment toward women by 2.9 percentage points. However, it produces unintended consequences by increasing nonsexual aggression incidents (e.g., insults, shoving) among men by 15.3 percentage points. Both sexual and nonsexual violence seem to be costly; however, our results do not imply that costs of the program outweigh its benefits
The Effectiveness of Sin Food Taxes: Evidence from Mexico, with Emilio Gutierrez and Enrique Seira. Journal of Health Economics, 77 (102455). May 2021.
Abstract
We measure the effect of a large nationwide tax reform on sugar-added drinks and caloric-dense food introduced in Mexico in 2014. Using scanner data containing weekly purchases of 47,973 barcodes by 8,130 households and an RD design, we find that calories purchased from taxed drinks and taxed food decreased respectively by 2.7% and 3%. However, this was compensated by increases from untaxed categories, such that total calories purchased did not change. We find increases in cholesterol (12.6%), sodium (5.8%), saturated fat (3.1%), carbohydrates (2%), and proteins (3.8%)
Replication Files | Blog
Fidelity of Implementation of Prospera Digital: Evaluation of a Multi-Site mHealth Intervention Aimed at Improving Maternal Health Outcomes in Mexico, with Pablo Gaitán-Rossi , Selene De la Cerda, Alma C. Pérez, Manett Vargas, and Mireya Vilar-Compte. Current Developments in Nutrition 3 (10): nzz107. October 2019.
Abstract
Infrastructure and human capital limitations motivate the design of mHealth
programs, but their large-scale implementation may be challenging in a development context.
Prospera Digital (PD) is a pilot mHealth intervention aiming to improve maternal and child health
and nutrition designed as a randomized controlled trial with 3 treatment arms. It was
implemented during 2015–2017 in 326 treatment clinics located in 5 states in Mexico. : Co-ordination between the Health and Social Development ministries was adequate,
although some health providers were not informed about PD. Program developers added useful
implementation strategies during roll-out to reinforce sign-up events. Key quality facilitators were
the clarity and relevance of the messages from the short messages service. Beneficiaries
expressed high satisfaction with PD. In contrast, implementation barriers to adherence in some
localities might reduce the potential impact of PD. Program differentiation was low between the
3 treatment arms
Decomposition of gender differentials in agricultural productivity in Ethiopia, with Eliana Carranza, Markus Goldstein, Talip Kilic and Gbemisola Oseni, Agricultural Economics 46(3): pp. 311-334, May 2015.
Abstract
A number of studies document gender differentials in agricultural productivity. However, they are limited to region and crop-specific estimates of the mean gender gap. This article improves on previous work in three ways. First, data representative at the national level and for a wide variety of crops is exploited. Second, decomposition methods—traditionally used in the analysis of wage gender gaps—are employed. Third, heterogeneous effects by women’s marital status and along the productivity distribution are analyzed. Drawing on data from the 2011–2012 Ethiopian Rural Socioeconomic Survey, we find an overall 23.4 percentage point productivity differential in favor of men, of which 13.5 percentage points (57%) remain unexplained after accounting for gender differences in land manager characteristics, land attributes, and access to resources. The magnitude of the unexplained fraction is large relative to prior estimates in the literature. A more detailed analysis suggests that differences in the returns to extension services, land certification, land extension, and product diversification may contribute to the unexplained fraction. Moreover, the productivity gap is mostly driven by non-married female managers—particularly divorced women—; married female managers do not display a disadvantage. Finally, overall and unexplained gender differentials are more pronounced at mid-levels of productivity.
Coping with La Crisis, with Georgia Hartman, David Keyes, Lisa Markman, and Max Matus in Mexican Migration and the U.S. Economic Crisis. A Transational Perspective, Wayne Cornelius, David Fitzgerald, Pedro Lewin Fischer, and Leah Muse Orlinoff (eds.), Center for Comparative Immigration Studies, UCSD, San Diego 2009.
Desigualdad de la Educación y de los Ingresos Laborales en México: la Importancia de la Calidad Educativa (with Maria E. Ortega Hesles), La Gaceta de Economía, Autumn 2007, 13(23): 11-50.