Research

My research spans the fields of labour and applied economics. Major topics include firm dynamism and productivity, skills mismatch and gender inequality.

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Publications

Historically, the Spanish labor market has been quite unstable. The unexpected arrival of COVID-19 in 2020 has stressed these vulnerabilities. In this paper, we analyze the immediate impact of the pandemic on Spanish labor market outcomes. We find that, during the lockdown period, individuals work 3 hours less per week. Moreover, results show that the labor force participation reduced by 2.3% due to the pandemic. Finally, sectors of activity present heterogeneous effects.

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We measure product market concentration and business dynamism in the UK from 1997 to 2020 and study the relationship with productivity. Our results show that concentration in the UK is increasing among narrow industries on average, but for a broad market definition, concentration and business dynamism are stable. We find a negative relationship between concentration and productivity for the average firm, but a positive relationship for the average worker. This occurs because higher industry concentration is associated with better allocative efficiency, measured by the proportion of workers in higher productivity firms.

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Working papers

This paper explores the role of board gender composition on pay-related outcomes in the UK. Using administrative data from firms with at least 250 employees since 2017/18, we employ a method based on Bartik (1991). Our approach relies on the regional aggregation of the share of female directors. This is exogenous to firm-level wage determination. The findings reveal that a more gender-diverse board can reduce the pay gap by over 3%, as female directors are associated with better outcomes for other female employees. This effect is more pronounced among higher-productivity firms, which often exhibit a higher Gender Pay Gap due to female under-representation and within-firm inequalities. When looking jointly at the board nationality and gender composition, gender is significant for any outcome in company boards where more than 51% of directors are UK nationals.

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We investigate the effect of the UK’s “Eat Out to Help Out” policy on firm creation. The policy subsidised people to eat-out at participating restaurants for a period over the COVID-19 pandemic. We find that the policy caused a 5.6% increase in business registrations in areas with participating restaurants. The increase is largest in high-street service activities such as ‘hairdressing and other beauty treatment’. We interpret this as evidence of a demand stimulus in one sector, leading to anticipated demand increases in geographically-close sectors, and consequently a supply increase as measured by firm creation.

Media Coverage: The Productivity Institute

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This paper examines a problem of worker misallocation into jobs. A theoretical model, allowing for heterogeneous workers and firms, shows that job search frictions generate mismatch between employees and employers. In the empirical analysis, the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS), the UK household Longitudinal Study (UKHLS) and British Cohort Study 1970 (BCS70) data are used to measure the incidence of mismatch, how it changes over time and whether it can be explained by unobserved ability. Results show that (i) the incidence of mismatch increases after the Great Recession. (ii) Individual transitions to/from matching take place due to workers’ occupational mobility and over-time skills development. (iii) Employees can find better jobs or their mobility occurs earlier than the aggregate change of skills. (iv) Controlling for individual heterogeneity, measured by cognitive and non-cognitive skill test scores throughout childhood, does not decrease the incidence of mismatch. This suggests that unobserved productivity does not generate mismatch in the labour market.

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This paper looks at the extent of labour market mismatch of public-sector female employees. It contributes to earlier findings for the British labour market by taking into account the endogenous self-selection into jobs. Estimates are based on data from the British Household Panel Study and the ‘Understanding Society’ covering the years 1991-2016. The analysis verifies that the public sector offers a few low-skilled jobs and employs, mostly, high-educated (female) workers. Regarding the market flows, findings show the greater mobility of the female workforce, which moves proportionately between sectors. Greater in-/out-flows to/from private sector are observed regardless the gender of the employee. Once comparing women to the median employee, a sizeable incidence of mismatch arises due to negative selection. Specifications using the selection model for the public sector illustrate a systematically higher magnitude of mismatch. Pooled results seem to dominate when women seen in the male labour market or in a restricted subsample. Finally, the map of occupations in mismatch supports that the public sector is more attractive as a waiting room for highly-qualified graduates. They queue less time until they find a good job. Hence, policy implications regarding the allocation of jobs for women may arise.

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Work in progess

Selected work in progress

Using the publicly available Companies House data, we construct a business census that monitors companies in each register. It monitors changes in postcodes and SIC codes. We use this data to study the dynamics of UK businesses.

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Policy reports

Business creation fell across the whole of the UK during the first lockdown but boomed during the second and third. Certain regions and sectors have recovered faster than others, notably London, and wholesale and retail trade.

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Code

A tool that assigns country, rural/urban identifier and longitude/latitude information to full postcodes (e.g. CT2 7NZ) in the UK.

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The code converts postcodes units (e.g. TS25 5ND) to postcodes areas (e.g. TS). It then assigns postcodes to Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics (NUTS) codes of the United Kingdom (UK).

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