Labor Market Scarring in a Developing Economy : Stigma versus Lost Human Capital from Plant Closings in Mexico

This paper estimates the magnitude of labor market scarring in a developing economy, a setting that has been understudied by the labor scarring literature dominated by advanced economies. The paper assesses the contributions of “stigma” versus “lost human capital,” which cause earnings losses among displaced workers relative to non-displaced workers. The findings indicate that job separations caused by plant closings result in sizable and long-lasting reductions in earnings, with an average decline of 7.5 percent in hourly wages over a nine-year period. The estimate for one year after a plant closing is larger, at a decline of 10.8 percent. In a common sample, after controlling for unobserved, time-invariant individual characteristics, the impact of a plant closing declines from 11.9 to 8.2 percent. These results imply that stigma in the labor market due to imperfect information about workers (captured by unobservable worker characteristics) accounts for 30.8 percent of the average earnings losses, whereas lost employer-specific human capital explains the remaining 69.2 percent. The paper explores the effects of job separations due to plant closings on other labor market outcomes, including hours worked and informality, and provides estimates across genders and levels of education.