2016 Fiscal Year Annual Research Report
The effect of minimum wage on labor market outcomes in Mexico
| Project/Area Number |
16F16014
|
|---|
| Research Institution | The University of Tokyo |
|---|
Principal Investigator |
川口 大司 東京大学, 大学院経済学研究科(経済学部), 教授 (80346139)
|
|---|
| Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha) |
INIGUEZ -MONTIEL ALBERTO 東京大学, 大学院経済学研究科(経済学部), 外国人特別研究員
|
|---|
| Project Period (FY) |
2016-10-07 – 2019-03-31
|
| Keywords | Mexico / Labor market / Drug war |
|---|
| Outline of Annual Research Achievements |
Our research project is advancing smoothly and, besides completing the first part of our dataset and clearly defining the empirical strategies to be used in our analysis, we have obtained the first set of preliminary results that lay the ground to a working paper that is already in progress.
It should be mentioned that we incorporate an additional research topic, which is related to the impact of the Mexican drug war on labor market outcomes and economic activity.
We obtained the first set of results and findings, which can be summarized as follows: Our IV results show that a one unit increase in the homicide rate in the war-affected municipalities increased both the male intensive margin of labor and the female extensive margin of labor significantly due to the conflict. By further disaggregating the impact of the war by job type and occupation, we identify that formal- and informal-sector employment decreased and increased, respectively, in a significant manner for both males and females.
|
| Current Status of Research Progress |
Current Status of Research Progress
2: Research has progressed on the whole more than it was originally planned.
Reason
During the current fiscal year, the main dataset that is being used in our research project was completed. We also incorporated an additional research topic entitled “The Impact of the Mexican Drug War on Employment and Economic Activity” to our project, and have worked since then on the empirical strategy and implementation of the empirical methods.
|
| Strategy for Future Research Activity |
Our plan for the coming fiscal year is to use two additional IVs in order to improve upon our current results. Although the current results are good enough, there is still a concern of whether the current IV is completely exogenous. We are planning to implement robustness checks by using additional IVs, which could also help us increasing the precision and efficiency of our estimates. Furthermore, we will also apply a RD approach in order to test important hypothesis related to the Mexican drug war, but also to corroborate whether our IV results are correct or not. In order to apply this methodology an additional dataset must be compiled, and we are going to dedicate some time in the construction of these new data.
We plan to complete a preliminary working paper by May, which is expected to be presented at two different meetings of the Econometric Society in Argentina and the US in November 2017 and January 2018, respectively, as well as at the Empirical Micro Research Seminar at the University of Tokyo.
|
Research Products
(1 results)
