Essays on Labor Markets and Public Service Provision

Abstract

This dissertation comprises three essays using tools from development and labor economics to study labor market behavior and the delivery of public services. In the first chapter, I study how the prevalence of harsh workplaces and limited information about working conditions shape household labor supply and employer behavior. Using a series of surveys and experiments with workers and employers in India's garment sector, I document that married couples try to manage the risk of the wife ending up in a harsh workplace by working together, or "co-working." Employers recognize that married couples engage in coordinated job search, making them less mobile than other workers, and prefer hiring couples to reduce worker churn. They further take advantage by offering co-working women slightly lower wages than women working alone. The results provide novel evidence on co-working, an understudied labor market phenomenon, and shed light on the broader labor market implications of harsh workplaces for women. In the second chapter, co-authored with Esther Duflo, Rema Hanna, and Benjamin Olken, we study the tradeoffs governments face between performing tasks in-house and outsourcing to private firms. While classical theories of outsourcing presume that firms are more efficient, could there be tasks where the government performs better? We examine this question through an experiment in Chennai, India, where neighborhoods were randomly assigned to have property tax assessments conducted by government tax inspectors or private firms contracted by the government. We find that government inspectors generated nearly twice the increase in tax revenue as private firms and produced more accurate assessments. This gap appears to reflect both adverse selection in which firms bid on the outsourcing contract and inspectors' superior enforcement authority, effort, and local knowledge. The results highlight important limits to outsourcing. In the third chapter, co-authored with Victoria Angelova, we study the contributions of foreign-born physicians to healthcare provision in the United States. J-1 visa waiver programs were introduced to address physician shortages by allowing foreign-born physicians who completed their medical residencies in the U.S. to remain in the country in exchange for at least three years of service in federally designated healthcare shortage areas. We examine the effects of the first such program, administered by the Appalachian Regional Commission. Combining data on physician placements with Medicare claims data, we show that the arrival of a new physician leads to a persistent increase in local physician supply, an increase in office visits and outpatient procedures among Medicare beneficiaries, and improved diagnosis rates for chronic conditions such as diabetes and hypertension. The findings underscore the critical role of foreign-born physicians in meeting healthcare needs for vulnerable populations in medically underserved areas.