Working papers & works in progress

Selected work in progress

(provisional titles)

When do employers share? Rent sharing, monopsony and minimum wages with Ihsaan Bassier
[Latest public version | 2025 CEP Discussion Paper]
When firm productivity or product demand rises, workers typically share in the gains through higher wages or expanded employment. We show that this link can break sharply when monopsonistic firms are constrained by labour market institutions such as minimum wages, which increase the rent-sharing level but decrease pass-through. Revenue-productivity improvements raise revenues but not wages or employment: firms simply maintain the minimum wage and absorb the gains into higher wage markdowns. We find compelling evidence for these predictions using South African administrative data, based on a cross-sectional kink design as well as responses to firm-specific internal and shift-share trade shocks. These results reveal a previously overlooked monopsonistic margin—productivity-induced markdown adjustment—and we show using a structural model that this substantially diminishes the intended returns of policies such as employment subsidies.

Surplus labour and structural transformation after land dispossession with Ihsaan Bassier and Surbhi Kesar

When the lights stay on: Electricity reliability and house prices with Allan Davids
[This research was supported by funding from the IGC]

Irregular imputation and implausible households in the 2022 South African Census with Amy Thornton

Racial segregation in South African formal sector firms with Ihsaan Bassier
[R&R at Journal of Stratification Economics | This research was supported by funding from the SA-TIED programme]

Working Papers

Surviving in the dark: the mortality effects of reducing rolling blackouts
[July 2024 version | SALDRU Newsletter article | WIDERAngle Blogpost]

Stimulus effects of a large public employment programme with Ihsaan Bassier
[January 2024 version | Op-Ed]
Media: CNBC Africa, Newzroom Afrika

Estimating employment responses to South Africa’s Employment Tax Incentive with Amina Ebrahim
[July 2021 version]

Markups and market structure in South Africa: What can be learnt from new administrative data?
[August 2019 version]

South African poverty lines: A review and two new money-metric thresholds with Murray Leibbrandt and Ingrid Woolard
[August 2015 version | Op-Ed]