Because employment is a central social policy goal, policy analysts and policy makers are interested in better understanding whether and how jobs meet people's needs. To contribute to research in this area, this dissertation uses nationally representative survey data and regression analysis to empirically examine how the characteristics of workers and their jobs affect access to employee benefits. The first two essays focus on access to the unemployment insurance program, and the third essay focuses on access to employer provided health insurance coverage, paid leave, and pensions. Together these chapters identify barriers and pathways between employment and benefits after the Great Recession and highlight ways in which policy makers can broaden the protective effects of employment in the new economy.

The main purpose of this research is to analyze the impact of different public policies on the Brazilian labor market using rigorous econometric techniques to study the Brazilian public sector. A clear theoretical and empirical comprehension is crucial when designing policies to mitigate social problems, as well-intentioned policies may exacerbate the original problems if they are not correctly designed.

This dissertation explores three questions in empirical public economics: we investigate the impact of social networks on labour market outcomes in the first essay; we explore the determinants of volunteering behaviour and estimate the effect of employment on volunteering in the second essay; and we examine the impact of political and fiscal decentralization on public provision in the third essay. In each case, we provide consistent estimates by utilizing an exogenous source of variation in key economic outcomes introduced by randomized policy experiments in the first two essays and by a natural experiment in the third essay. In the first essay, we find that among social networks, weak ties have a significant effect on labour market outcomes but strong ties do not have. In the second essay, we find that employment has a significant effect on volunteering behaviour, and that the effect varies in different contexts and depends on the precise channels through which the two are connected. In the final essay, we find that decentralization has a big effect on public provision. But we also find that decentralization affects different public goods differently, and that the key to its impact lies in the incentives facing politicians at the local level.

Social protection systems are designed to reduce poverty and vulnerability. During the last decades several middle income countries have expanded their social protection programs, but research regarding their effects of this expansion on labor market outcomes and demographic trends remains scant.

This study revisits classic questions of political economy through an interdisciplinary lens, wedding the insights of modern social theory with heterodox political economy. The first chapter synthesizes the economic and sociological literature on wage determination, developing a conceptual apparatus, which is better situated than previous approaches, to understand the factors animating stagnating wages in the United States since the emergence of Neoliberalism. The second chapter applies reflexivity, a method in the sociology of science, to the Phillips curve. In doing so, the implicit biases within both theoretical and empirical approaches to the Phillips curve are elucidated, recognizing the limitations of traditional labor underutilization measures. Alternative labor underutilization measures are constructed using labor market transition rates, which are then used to estimate alternative econometric specifications of the Phillips curve. The results of these estimations are consistent with a flattening of the Phillips curve, expected as a result of declining institutional bargaining power of workers. The chapter finishes highlighting the limitations of the models estimated, commentating on how the literature should approach the Phillips curve going forward. The final chapter, uses path-dependency as a conceptual entry point to problematize the instrumental-ceremonial dichotomy, arguing that ceremonial institutions (culture) must be comprehensively considered in theorizing progressive institutional change, moving beyond an understanding of them as purely “imbecile”. A theory of political mobilization for progressive institutional change is laid out, one which systematically accounts for ceremonial institutions. By using rhetoric as a tool, we can play into ceremonial habits of thought, weaving progressive policy through the ceremonial net to implementation, where its instrumentality can be revealed, and a lock-in can form as constituents become accustomed to the material benefits provided. It is here where a progressive path-dependency is formed.