Research

I study labor markets shaped by high informality: informal employment, gender differences, the reach of social protection, and equality of opportunity. My work asks a practical question underneath all of these — who ends up covered, who doesn’t, and why.

Working papers

Social Insurance Without a Job: School-Linked Benefits and Early Formalization in Mexico

Working paper, 2026

In 2016, Mexico gave six million students health coverage that had nothing to do with having a job. A common worry is that benefits not tied to formal work discourage people from seeking it, but here formal employment rose fastest in states where informal work was already most common, and the effect ran entirely through wage jobs rather than self-employment.

Work in progress

Domestic Workers and Social Insurance

Work in progress

Mexico’s 2019 reform opened enrollment in the national social security system (IMSS) to two million domestic workers, overwhelmingly women, through a voluntary pilot meant as a bridge to a mandate. This project measures how much of the coverage gap voluntary enrollment actually closed.

From NAFTA to USMCA: Labor Market Effects in Mexico

Work in progress

In 2020, the trade agreement that replaced NAFTA wrote a minimum wage for autoworkers and a requirement for genuine union representation directly into its text, an unusual move for a trade deal. This project traces whether those provisions actually changed employment and pay in Mexico, using detailed records that link workers to their employers.

Banco de México

Boxes from the Quarterly Report. These are institutional publications. Each entry links to the original.

The Gender Gap in Labor Earnings: Occupation, Hours, and Hourly Pay. Quarterly Report April–June 2026, Box 2. Read the box (PDF, in Spanish) · Summary

Other work

Health Care Utilization and Costs in Systemic Therapies for Metastatic Melanoma, 2016–2020. A collaboration with dermatologists and oncologists at Stanford that began through Knight-Hennessy. The Oncologist, 2022. Article · Summary
Why Support Breastfeeding at Work? Inter-American Development Bank, Gender and Diversity blog, August 2022. Post (in Spanish) · Summary
How Long Does an Informal Job Last in Mexico? Undergraduate thesis, ITAM, 2017. Premio Citibanamex de Economía 2017 and Premio Ex-ITAM 2018. Thesis (PDF, in Spanish) · Summary