Research

THE DYNAMIC EFFECTS OF UNIONIZATION ON PRODUCTIVITY (R&R at Industrial Relations)

Abstract: We study the dynamic effects of unionization on firm productivity in Chile using panel data from the Longitudinal Business Survey (ELE), conducted in 2015, 2017, 2019, and 2022. We identify as treated firms those that transition from no union presence to having at least one union during the sample period, and compare them to matched controls drawn from firms that remain non-unionized throughout. Employing a matched event study design with two within-sector matching specifications, we find that value added and TFP increase gradually, becoming statistically significant at four and five years after unionization. We find no statistically significant effect on the profit rate, consistent with productivity gains offsetting higher labor costs. Wages increase significantly at four years after unionization, and worker turnover declines significantly starting one period after unionization, consistent with the voice mechanism. We also find no significant effect on the share of subcontracted workers, which rejects the hypothesis that unionization induces firms to reorganize their labor relations through outsourcing.

NUTRITIONAL STATUS TRAJECTORIES AND ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE: LONGITUDINAL EVIDENCE FROM CHILE

with Dante Contreras, Fabián Duarte and Melanie Saavedra

Abstract: Chile ranks among the highest in the OECD for overweight and obesity prevalence, with over half of school-age children affected — yet no prior study has examined the consequences for academic outcomes in this context. This paper investigates how longitudinal trajectories of nutritional status from early childhood to adolescence affect academic performance among Chilean students. Using a census-level panel dataset of 78,893 students observed in first, fifth, and ninth grade between 2014 and 2022, we construct eight nutritional status trajectory categories — ranging from persistently normal to persistently affected by overweight or obesity (OwOb) — and estimate their association with ninth-grade percentile ranking and school attendance. Identification relies on school fixed effects and lagged dependent variables to control for unobserved school-level heterogeneity and prior academic trends. We find that transitioning into OwOb during adolescence reduces girls’ percentile ranking by 1.2 points and attendance by 0.45 percentage points relative to peers who maintained normal nutritional status throughout. Transitions into obesity specifically carry the largest penalties: girls who become obese during adolescence experience a decline of over 3 percentile points in academic ranking. Conversely, exiting OwOb states is associated with significant academic improvements for both sexes, with gains of up to 2.4 percentile points for girls and 1.7 for boys. Effects are consistently larger when the nutritional transition involves obesity rather than overweight, and are more pronounced during adolescence than childhood. Robustness checks using SIMCE standardized test scores confirm the direction and magnitude of the main findings. These results suggest that the educational costs of childhood obesity are substantial, gender-differentiated, and sensitive to the timing and severity of nutritional transitions — underscoring the value of early, sustained interventions targeting nutritional health in school-age populations.

PUBLICATIONS