Lucas Ronconi

Globalization, Domestic Institutions and Enforcement of Labor Law: Evidence from Latin America

This paper provides new measures of government enforcement of labor regulations in eighteen Latin American countries between 1985 and 2009, and explores how it is affected by external and domestic factors. The results suggest that governments react to the competitive pressures produced by trade opening by turning a blind eye to noncompliance, but increase enforcement in response to higher FDI. Governments also react to the demands of their constituent base to keep their support and reinforce partisan affinities, and workers are more effective in more democratic systems.

Labor Law Violations in Chile

This paper is a contribution to the empirical literature on quantification of labor law violation. It takes up the case of a relatively advanced developing country, Chile, which has a high degree of administrative and bureaucratic capacity. Using micro survey data, the paper establishes the basic facts of compliance with four dimensions of labor law: minimum wage, hours worked, having a contract, and having a pension. On average over the period 1990-2009, we find that the laws were violated in at least one of these dimensions for one third of workers. However, there are large and significant variations over time, across laws and by worker and firm characteristics. Simple tabulation followed by econometric analysis shows that compliance rates are lower for women, foreign born, indigenous and less educated workers; in smaller firms; and in agricultural regions. These initial findings frame a rich research agenda on compliance and enforcement of labor law in Chile.

Labor inspections in the developing world: : Stylized facts from the enterprise survey

This paper empirically explores the incidence of labor inspections across registered firms in 72 developing countries. Results show that larger firms are more likely to be inspected than smaller firms. Interestingly, inspections are less likely to occur among firms with a larger share of low-skilled workers, and that operate in industries with more tax evasion. We explore the heterogeneity of these findings across income and geographic groups, and conclude by briefly discussing the consistency of the stylized facts with competing theories of inspection agencies’ behavior.

Labor Exclusion and the Erosion of Citizenship Responsibilities

This paper shows that workers who do not receive legally mandated benefits due to employer noncompliance have a negative view not only of their employers, as has been documented, but also of the State. Those workers believe that the State did not protect their rights, and hence they feel fewer obligations to comply with their duties as citizens. Using a list experiment, as well as household data from nine Latin American countries, the paper shows that non-registered workers are less likely to obey the law, pay taxes and vote compared to registered workers.

U.S. Free Trade Agreements and Enforcement of Labor Law in Latin America

This paper analyzes whether Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) signed between the United States and Latin American countries during the last decade produced higher enforcement of labor regulations. The paper computes before-after estimates of the effect of FTAs on labor inspections and exploits variation across countries using non-signers as a comparison group. The empirical strategy benefits from the fact that about half of Latin American countries have signed a trade agreement with the United States. Difference-in-differences estimates suggest that signing an FTA produced a 20 percent increase in the number of labor inspectors and a 60 percent increase in the number of inspections. The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), however, does not appear to have the same positive impacts on Mexico. The paper concludes with a discussion of these results.

La incidencia de la dotación de infraestructuras para los servicios públicos en red en el precio del suelo: evidencia del Gran Buenos Aires

espanolUtilizando una muestra de cerca de 600 lotes localizados en municipios del Gran Buenos Aires (gba), se estima la incidencia que tiene la dotacion de infraestructuras para los servicios publicos en red, como cloacas, gas en red, pavimento y electricidad, sobre el precio de los lotes. Los estimadores sugieren que la provision de infraestructura tiene un efecto positivo sobre el valor de la propiedad que supera el costo de construccion, particularmente entre los lotes geograficamente mejor ubicados. Se analiza, asimismo, la sensibilidad de los estimadores a problemas de variable omitida. Estos resultados sugieren que la contribucion por mejora basada en la valorizacion del inmueble, una herramienta que no se utiliza en el gba, puede constituirse en un instrumento eficaz de financiamiento. EnglishIn this article, the authors estimate the effect of investment on infrastructure (i.e., sewerage, gas provision, paved streets and electricity) on the price of land using a sample of almost 600 lots located in Greater Buenos Aires (gba). The estimates suggest that effects are positive and larger than the cost of construction, particularly among the lots with the best locations. We also explore the robustness of the results to omitted variable bias. These results suggest that betterment levies, which are seldom used in gba, could become an effective financial tool in some cases.