Essays on the formal labor market of Brazil

Abstract

In this dissertation, I study the formal labor market of Brazil using restricted-access, employer-employee matched data from RAIS. In the first chapter, I show that estimates derived from administrative data smaller wage gaps, driven by racial bias; estimates from survey data yield much larger wage gaps, driven not just by racial bias, but also by differences in observable worker characteristics. In the second chapter, I identify wage discrimination using variation in the perception of the same worker's race by different employers and find that roughly 30 percent of the racial wage gap among workers changing jobs is associated with variation in the employer's perception of race and find that race change is strongly associated with movements of workers between racially segregated plants. In the final chapter, I estimate firm-specific starting pay and wage-tenure profiles and document features between these estimates and turnover that provide insight about firms’ personnel management practices.