Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/145286 
Authors: 
Year of Publication: 
2016
Series/Report no.: 
IZA Discussion Papers No. 9995
Publisher: 
Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA), Bonn
Abstract: 
The rise in unemployment during an economic crisis poses a significant concern to policy makers. This paper measures the effect of a program in Mexico that granted firms in certain industries wage subsidies if they decided to keep their workers instead of letting them go during the recent economic crisis. The analysis uses monthly administrative data on employment at the industry level, along with propensity score matching to construct groups of eligible and ineligible durable goods manufacturing industries that display statistically identical pre‐program trends in employment. Difference‐in‐difference results show a positive but not statistically significant effect of the wage subsidies on employment during the program's eight‐month duration, ranging from 5.7 to 13.2 percent in magnitude, depending on the specification. The size of the effect increases to 24 percent after the program ended and the results indicate that employment after the program recovered faster in eligible industries than in ineligible industries.
Subjects: 
wage subsidies
industrial policy
crisis mitigation
firm behavior
JEL: 
J23
H32
L60
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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