• Bureaucratic turnover across levels of government 

      Brassiolo, Pablo; Estrada, Ricardo; Fajardo, Gustavo (CAF; Caracas, 2021-11-19)
      The incidence of patronage can vary widely across levels of gov ernment within a country. We show this in the context of Brazil, which has been the focus of most recent research on patronage. In particular, we find that ...
    • Family Rules: Nepotism in the Mexican Judiciary 

      Brassiolo, Pablo; Estrada, Ricardo; Fajardo, Gustavo; Martínez-Correa, Julian (CAF; Caracas, 2021-10-19)
      We show that bureaucrats can exploit discretion in hiring decisions to engage in forms of favoritism that hinder organizational performance. We do this in the context of the Mexican federal judiciary. The arrival of a judge ...
    • Going subnational: wage differentials across levels of government in Brazil, Mexico and Uruguay 

      Baez, Maria Josefina; Brassiolo, Pablo; Estrada, Ricardo; Fajardo, Gustavo (CAF; Caracas, 2021-12-22)
      Workers at subnational governments play a prominent role in the delivery of public services in most countries. Yet, information about their remuneration is scarce. Using data for Brazil, Mexico and Uruguay, we document ...
    • My (Running) Mate, the Mayor: Political Ties and Access to Public Jobs in Ecuador 

      Brassiolo, Pablo; Estrada, Ricardo; Fajardo, Gustavo (CAF; Caracas, 2020-01-17)
      We show that local politicians’ probability of being employed by a municipality increases when they have a strong party connection to its mayor. Using a regression discontinuity design, we compare the employment outcomes ...
    • Self-Selection into Corruption: Evidence from the Lab 

      Brassiolo, Pablo; Estrada, Ricardo; Fajardo, Gustavo; Vargas, Juan (CAF; Caracas, 2020-04-22)
      We study whether the existence of opportunities to extract rents in a job affects the type of individuals who are attracted to it. We design a laboratory experiment in which individuals choose between two contracts, each ...
    • Taking One for the Team: Shocks at Destination and Households' Supply of Migrants 

      Fajardo, Gustavo; Gutiérrez, Emilio; Larreguy, Horacio (CAF; Buenos Aires, 2017-08-9)
      We study how unemployment shocks in the United States affect Mexican households’ migration decisions. We emphasize households at origin (as op-posed to individuals) as the decisionmaking units for migration decisions. We ...
    • Who attract the public sector compensation schemes?: evidence from Latin America 

      Álvarez-Parra, Fernando; Brassiolo, Pablo; Fajardo, Gustavo (CAF; Caracas, 2021-12-22)
      Compensation schemes tend to differ markedly between public and private sector jobs, which can affect the relative preferences of potential employees towards those jobs. We explore this through two informational experiments ...