Working Papers
Working Papers
“Nutritious School Meals and Educational Outcomes” (R&R at Journal of Development Economics) with Carmen Quezada draft
This paper estimates the impact of school meal quality on student outcomes. We take advantage of a staggered implementation of a national program that improved the nutritional content of meals in public schools in Chile starting in 2015. Using a Difference-in-Difference approach and national student-level data over six years, we estimate a credible Intention-to-Treat impact of healthier meals on Math and Reading test scores. We find an average increase of 0.036 standard deviations in combined scores. The students from the poorest and rural households present the largest effects. We explore possible mechanisms including attendance. We show indirect evidence that supports the main hypothesized mechanism, the improvement of food nutrients. In particular, we find evidence that the students from low-income households that are more often exposed to these nutritious meals are the ones who get the largest increase in their test scores. Finally, we calculate that it would cost 87 USD per year to raise a student’s test score by 0.1 standard deviations by providing healthier meals.
“Natural Disasters and Early Child Development: Evidence from an Earthquake” (R&R at Economics of Education Review) draft
This paper evaluates the impact of the 2010 Chilean earthquake in early life on children’s cognitive and non-cognitive development in the short and medium-term. I exploit the quasi-random spatial and birth-cohort variation to estimate the impact of the earthquake. I find that seven years later children between in utero and four years old at the moment of the earthquake decrease their cognitive test scores in an average of 0.17 standard deviations (SDs) and their non-cognitive test scores in 0.13 SDs. In the short-term, I also find a negative effect on cognitive development around the same magnitude as in the medium-term. The ffects are stronger for boys. I explore three sets of mechanisms. First, in terms of mother’s risky behaviors, I find that mothers in most effected municipalities increase their probability of behaving riskily, specifically, in smoking from in-utero up to the first six months of the child’s life. Second, I find a negative effect on household income two months after the tremor equivalent to a 10% average reduction; however, this income reduction fades away two years after the shock. Finally, in terms of health investment, no significant effect is found in breastfeeding or health care during and after pregnancy.
Gillmore, R. (2025). “Daylight Saving Time and Automobile Accidents: Evidence from Chile". Health Economics, 34(5), 880-931. doi: 10.1002/hec.4936 working paper
Under the evidence that the Daylight Saving Time (DST) regime does not accomplish its primary goal of saving energy, I analyze one of the main side effects, automobile accidents in Chile between 2002-2018. I use a Regression Discontinuity Design (RDD) exploiting the discrete nature of the transition into DST and a Difference-in-Difference (DID) approach, taking advantage of the changes in dates that the policy starts and ends over the years. I find a 2.7% reduction in automobile accidents under the DST regime. I isolate the two main mechanisms: sleep disruption and the reallocation of light. I find suggestive evidence that the sleep disruption effect plays a relevant role at both transitions: it increases automobile accidents by 6% the first week following the transition into DST and decreases them by 3.9% the first week following the transition into Standard Time (ST). I also find evidence that ambient light reduces serious and fatal accident risk.
Contreras, D., Gillmore, R., Puentes, E. (2017). Self-Employment and Queues for Wage Work: Evidence from Chile. Journal of International Development, 29: 473-499. doi: 10.1002/jid.3074.
Self-employment can be considered as either the result of a self-selection process or a reflection of rigidities and skill mismatch in the labour market or both. We estimate a double selection model where individuals queue for wage work instead of being self-employed in the first stage, followed by employers selecting from the queue in the second. We find statistical support for the double selection model, implying that some individuals are self-employed because they cannot find wage work, while other self-select to be self-employed. Individuals with higher education are more often chosen as wage workers, and belonging to an ethnic group decreases the likelihood of being chosen. Additionally, earnings equations suggest that high ability individuals perform better in both the wage work and self-employment sectors.
Care Across Generations: How Grandparenthood Affects Labor Supply in a Middle-Income Country, with Damian Clarke (University of Exeter), Valeria Logan (Central Bank of Chile), and Esteban Puentes (U. de Chile)
Life Cycle Effects of School Entry Cutoffs Policy, with Carmen Quezada (U Finis Terrae and IDB)
Anatomy of the Investment Network in a Commodity-Dependent Economy, with Rodrigo Heresi, David Kohn, Dagoberto Quevedo, and Nicolás Rivera (Central Bank of Chile)
Minimum Wage and Firm Outcomes, with Elias Albagli, Sofia Bauducco, Juan Guerra-Salas, and David Kohn (Central Bank of Chile)
Financial Constraints and the Absorption of Labor Supply Shocks, with Ignacio Torres (USC)
A Deep Learning Model for Classifying Job Positions, with Diego Donoso, Jesica Olivares, and Dagoberto Quevedo (Central Bank of Chile)
Crime and lockdown during the Covid-19 pandemic: Evidence from Chile, with Gonzalo Castex (UNSW) and Nicolás Rivera (Central Bank of Chile)
Broadband Pricing and Quality Innovation in U.S. Urban Areas: Assessing the Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic, with Kenneth Flamm (UT - Austin)
Policy Reports (In Spanish)
Albagli, E., Araya, P., Bauducco, S., Gillmore, R., Guerra-Salas, J., Kohn, D., Logan, V. (2024). "Efectos en el mercado laboral de cambios recientes en el salario mínimo". IPOM Diciembre 2024. Banco Central de Chile. link
Andalaft, S., Donoso, D., Gillmore, R., Kohn, D., Quevedo, D., Rivera, N. (2024). "Impacto agregado y sectorial de la inversión: Evidencia desde los microdatos". IPOM Septiembre 2024. Banco Central de Chile. link
Andalaft, S., Gillmore, R., Kohn, D., Rishmawi, J. (2023). "Efectos heterogéneos a shocks a tasas de interés de largo plazo en firmas chilenas". IPOM Diciembre 2023. Banco Central de Chile. link
Castex, G., Gillmore, R., Poblete, I. (2019). Analyzing Flows in the Chilean Labor Market. Economía chilena, vol. 22, no. 2. link