International Migrants and the Human Capital Formation of Their Left-Behind Children [New Version coming soon!]
Abstract: International migration can disrupt families and affect the human capital investment of left-behind children. Using data from the Mexican Family Life Survey, I document that mothers with husbands in the United States invest less time and resources in the education of their children than those with husbands in Mexico. I develop a heterogeneous household model with endogenous migration and intergenerational linkages through investments in children's education. The model incorporates important features of the data. In particular, I allow for three features: the low returns of a Mexican education in the U.S. labor market, selection in the migration decision, and potential complementarity between fathers and mothers in the human capital formation of their children. I find that the differential returns of a Mexican education between the U.S. and Mexican labor markets is crucial to explain the educational investment disparities.
International Remittances and Intra-Household Risk-Sharing [New Version: October 2025][Submitted]
Abstract: A large body of research has established the importance of international remittances as an insurance mechanism against income shocks in developing countries. However, households have additional self-insurance mechanisms, including precautionary savings, labor supply adjustments, and multiple earners. This paper develops a model with heterogeneous two-member households and endogenous international remittances to study the relationship between remittances from overseas workers and other self-insurance mechanisms. I calibrate the model with data from the Dominican Republic, and then use the model to decompose the relative importance of the self-insurance mechanisms used by non-migrant households and households with overseas workers. I find that the response of household behavior (remittances, labor supply, and savings) differs greatly depending on whether the household is a migrant or non-migrant household and on whether the shock hits the overseas worker (usually male) or the left-behind family member (usually female). Allowing for correlated wage shocks within non-migrant households further highlights the insurance benefits of migration by reducing joint exposure to local shocks and altering the composition of self-insurance mechanisms.
Assessing Targeted Containment Policies to Fight COVID-19 with Ariadne Checo and Francesco Grigoli. The B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics, 2022, Volume 22, Issue 1, pages 159-196.
Interest Rate Pass-Through in the Dominican Republic with Francesco Grigoli. Latin American Economic Review, 2017, Volume 26, Issue 4, pages 1-25.
Fiscal Shocks and the Time Use Within the Family with Christopher Biolsi, German Cubas, and Pedro Silos.
The Validity of Exclusion Restrictions in Remittance Research: A Formal Test with Oscar Gálvez-Soriano.