Knowledge that Transforms

This paper uses a policy implemented in Chile that obliges firms to fully fund childcare costs for their female employees, but only if they hire more than 19 women. Using plant level data from manufacturing firms, we first show that this policy has had a substantially detrimental impact on the hiring of women above that threshold, in particular since the policy has become more binding, in industrial sectors that hire fewer women and in larger firms. We then use the response of firms to study whether women workers are more or less complementary to capital than men. We find that firms that avoid the legislation by having just below 20 female workers are significantly more capital intensive than firms just above the threshold. This suggests that firms that want to avoid being subject to the regulation replace women with capital but in such a way that the capital to men ratio increases. We use our estimates to calibrate a production function and find that our results are consistent with a framework where women are weakly substitutes with capital (while men are complementary) in this emerging economy’s manufacturing sector. This does not seem to be driven by a change in skill composition of the workforce. We also find some evidence of other changes: average wages and total workforce are lower for firms who hire 20 women than those who hire just below that threshold but labor productivity is unaltered. PRELIMINARY, PLEASE DO NOT CITE ∗We thank comments from seminar participants at IADB, PUC Chile and Toronto. All remaining errors are our own. †Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile ‡Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile. §Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile and FinanceUC.

Madeline Zavodny of University of North Florida reviews “Border Economies: Cities Bridging the U.S. – Mexico Divide” by James Gerber. The Econlit abstract of this book begins: “Explores urban economies on the US–Mexico border, illustrating the ways that these economies interact and shape each other's development.”

The list below specifies doctoral degrees conferred by U.S. and Canadian universities during academic year July 2023 to June 2024. Lists of degree recipients and subject classifications are provided by the university. Note: Dissertations without classifications may be found under “Y Miscellaneous Categories.”

Editor's Note Our policy is to annotate all English-language books on economics and related subjects that are sent to us. A very small number of foreign-language books are called to our attention and annotated by our consulting editors or others. Our staff does not monitor and order books published; therefore, if an annotation of a book does not appear six months after the publication date, please write to us or the publisher concerning the book.

Shai Bernstein of Harvard Business School reviews “The Promise and Peril of Entrepreneurship: Job Creation and Survival among US Startups” by Robert W. Fairlie, Zachary Kroff, Javier Miranda, and Nikolas Zolas. The Econlit abstract of this book begins: “Explores entrepreneurial job creation, survival, and ownership demographics, detailing a new dataset that follows the universe of startups in the United States, the novel and important findings that resulted from analyzing these and related data, and the implications for evaluating policy and the fundamental nature of entrepreneurship.”

Caroline Fohlin of Emory University reviews “Taming the Street: The Old Guard, the New Deal, and FDR's Fight to Regulate American Capitalism” by Diana B. Henriques. The Econlit abstract of this book begins: “Explores Franklin Delano Roosevelt's development and enactment of the New Deal after the 1929 stock market crash and subsequent Great Depression, focusing on the establishment of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).”

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