Research

Visa Regulations, Agricultural Employment, and Productivity

The H-2A visa program provides US farms access to foreign seasonal labor but requires employers to pay a federally mandated minimum hourly wage, the Adverse Effect Wage Rate, to both foreign and domestic workers performing comparable tasks. This paper studies how increases in the H-2A visa wage affect farms’ allocation of agricultural inputs. Using county-level data from the 2002–2022 USDA Census of Agriculture and a border-county pair design that compares counties across state lines, I show that higher visa wages lead farms to substitute away from labor and toward capital and materials. I find that a 1% increase in the visa wage on average leads to a 1.2% increase in machinery values, increases intermediate input use by 3.9% on the intensive margin, and expands the range of inputs used by 1.1% on the extensive margin. I find no effect on employment or payrolls. The results are consistent with labor-cost-driven mechanization and input intensification, which together contribute to higher agricultural productivity.

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Soft Skills and Hiring Discrimination

with Sarah Janzen, Yashodhan Ghorpade and Amanina Abdur Rahman (Submitted)

Hiring discrimination remains widespread, raising questions about how disadvantaged workers can improve labor market outcomes. We examine if employers value soft skills and whether such skills mitigate discrimination. Using a correspondence study in Malaysia, we test the effects of two soft skill signals: leadership and teamwork. We find Malay and Indian names are 11-14 percentage points less likely to be contacted, compared to Chinese names. Signaling teamwork skills reduces discrimination by 34-43%. We present a model that uses signals to distinguish statistical from taste-based discrimination. Our results are consistent with statistical discrimination, and suggest soft skills can counteract hiring discrimination.

Recommended citation: Valencia, C., Janzen, S., Ghorpade, Y., & Rahman, A. (2024). Soft Skills, Competition, and Hiring Discrimination.
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Peer pressure: Experimental Evidence from Restroom Behavior (with B. Cardinale Lagomarsino, M. Gutman, L. Freira, M. Lanzalot, M. Lauletta, L. Malchik, F. Montaño Campos, B. Pacini, and M. Rossi). Economic Inquiry, 55(3), 2017.
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• Diversity in Academia (with Anjali Adukia, Elisa Xi Chen, Marieke Kleemans and Anna Gifty Opoku-Agyeman

• From Metro Lines to Market Values: A Case Study of Rail Expansion and Land Prices in Buenos Aires (with Gustavo Nino)

• How Do Land Use and Crop Choices Respond to Labor Costs? (with Samyam Shrestha)