As part of the Vilfredo Pareto Research Seminar series, the International Economics Department at the Graduate Institute is pleased to invite you to the public talk

Working while studying, given by Diego Ubfal, Professor of Economics at Bocconi University (coauthored with Thomas Le Barbanchon and Federico Araya)

Diego Ubfal is a development economist with research on entrepreneurship, job training, financial access and networks. His current projects include field experiments and online experiments in Latin America and the Caribbean, Africa and the U.S.

Abstract | We provide the first estimates of the effects of "working while studying" that use controlled random variation in job offers. We leverage a Uruguayan program offering 9-to-12-month employment in state-owned companies by lottery to enrolled students. Using social security data matched to the universe of applicants, including 122,195 lottery applications, we estimate a positive and statistically significant 9% effect of working in a program job on youth labor earnings over the four post-program years. We find large positive effects on school enrollment during the program year, consistent with the conditionality of the program and smaller effects in the post-program years. Our time-use survey indicates that students substitute leisure and household chores with work, without significant reductions in studying time. Finally, a decomposition of the earnings effect shows that accumulation of work experience can explain the majority of the increase in earnings. However, returns to experience are lower among participants than among the control group, which is in line with a null effect of the program on soft skills as measured in our survey.

The Vilfredo Pareto Research Seminar is our Departmental weekly seminar, featuring external speakers in all areas of economics. The organizer for this academic year is Prof.  Julia Cajal-Grossi.