Recent Working Papers
Are Women Pawns in the Political Game? Evidence from Elections to the Spanish Senate (joint with Berta Esteve-Volart)
FEDEA Working Paper #2009/30
First version: May 2009; Last version: November 2009 (pdf)
This paper investigates the potential existence of a gender bias in political parties' nomination
strategies using data from elections to the Spanish Senate. The evidence in this paper suggests
that political competition enhances the quantity and quality of female legislators. We find that,
when the political arena is not competitive, parties use female candidates as pawns, in that they
are chosen according to how their presence in the list would affect gender statistics and male
candidates' possibilities of success. To avoid political parties exploiting order in the ballot to
favor particular candidates we propose to adopt ballot ordering rotation.
Media impact:
-An article based on this paper appeared in Voxeu.org
-An article in the blog Nadaesgratis.es summarizes the findings of our work and discusses its implications for the reform of the Senate ballot (in Spanish)
-Click here for a speech by the President of the Spanish Securities and Exchange Commission (CNMV) discussing our results (in Spanish)
-See article in Peruprensa (in Spanish)
Do Recruiters Prefer Applicants with Similar Skills? Evidence from a Randomized Natural Experiment (joint with María José Pérez Villadóniga)
Universidad Carlos III Working Paper #2009/62
First version: August 2009; Last version: September 2009 (pdf)
In this paper we examine the potential existence of a similar-to-me effect in terms of skills between recruiters and applicants. Using evidence from entry exams to the Spanish Judiciary, where applicants are randomly assigned across evaluation committees, we find that committee members tend to be more demanding at those stages where they are more knowledgeable. As a result, applicants who excel in the same dimensions as recruiters are more likely to be hired.
Why Do I Like People Like Me? (joint with María José Pérez Villadóniga)
Universidad Carlos III Working Paper #2008/06
First version: January 2004; Last version: January 2008 (pdf)
In many dimensions the ability to assess knowledge depends critically on the observer’s own knowledge of that dimension. Building on this feature, this paper offers both theoretical and empirical evidence showing that, in those tasks where multidisciplinary knowledge is required, evaluations exhibit a similar-to-me effect: candidates who excel in the same dimensions as the evaluator tend to be ranked relatively higher. It is also shown that, if races or genders differ in their distribution of ability, group discrimination will arise unless evaluators (i) are well informed about the extent of intergroup differences and (ii) they may condition their assessments on candidates’ group belonging.
Press:
-This paper has been featured in the business newspaper ‘Expansion’ (in Spanish)
Recent Publications
Can Gender Parity Break the Glass Ceiling? Evidence from a Repeated Randomized Experiment (joint with Berta Esteve-Volart)
FEDEA Working Paper #2007/15 (pdf)
Forthcoming in Review of Economic Studies (pdf)
This paper studies whether the gender composition of recruiting committees matters. We make
use of the exceptional evidence provided by Spanish public examinations, where the allocation of
candidates to evaluating committees is random. We analyze how the chances of success of 150,000
female and male candidates to the four main Corps of the Spanish Judiciary over 1987-2006 were
affected by the gender of their evaluators. We find that a female (male) candidate is significantly
less likely to pass the exam whenever she is randomly assigned to a committee where the share
of female (male) evaluators is relatively greater.
Do On-Line Labor Market Intermediaries Matter? The impact of AlmaLaurea on University-to-Work transition (joint with Mauro Sylos Labini)
NBER Working Paper #13621 (pdf)
Published in David H. Autor (ed), NBER book Studies of Labor Market Intermediation (pp. 127-154). Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009.
This paper evaluates the impact of the availability of electronic labor markets on university-to-work transition. In particular, we analyze the effect of the intermediation activity carried on by the interuniversity consortium AlmaLaurea on graduates’ labor market outcomes. Different timing of universities’ enrolment in AlmaLaurea produces counterfactuals that allow us to overcome the problems faced by previous empirical investigations. The evaluation is performed applying the difference-in-differences method to a repeated cross section data set. It is shown that, if the usual assumption concerning parallel outcomes holds, AlmaLaurea reduces individual unemployment probability and improves matching quality. Interestingly, it is also found that on-line intermediaries foster graduates’ geographical mobility.
Press:
-This paper has been featured in the business newspaper ‘Il Sole 24 ore’ (in Italian)
Differential Grading Standards and University Funding: Evidence from Italy (joint with Mauro Sylos Labini and Natalia Zinovyeva)
FEDEA Working Paper #2008/07
CESifo Economic Studies 54 (2), 149-176
This paper documents that grades vary significantly across Italian universities and degrees. We provide evidence suggesting that these differences reflect the heterogeneity of grading standards. A straightforward implication of this result is that university funding schemes based on students’ academic performance do not necessary favour universities that generate higher value added. We test this for the case of the Italian funds allocation system, which rewards universities according to the number of exams passed by their students. We find that university departments that rank higher according to this indicator actually tend to be significantly worse in terms of their graduates’ performance in the labour market.
Press:
-An article based on this paper appeared in Voxeu.org
Work in Progresss
Top Civil Service: Meritocracy or Nepotism? (joint with Berta Esteve-Volart)
Politicians’ Luck of the Draw: Evidence from the Spanish Christmas Lottery (joint with Berta Esteve-Volart)