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Abstract
This dissertation leverages high resolution data from Brazil to examine how labor markets adapt to major shocks and structural features. It is organized into three chapters that, respectively, investigate: (1) the impact of an environmental disaster, (2) the effects of large-scale refugee inflows, and (3) a new method to decompose the gender wage gap by capturing interactions between workers and firms. Chapter 1 focuses on the 2015 Mariana Dam disaster, offering a comparison between an urban spatial equilibrium model and a factor of production model. I find that the primary labor market disruption stem from the factor of production channel, due to the disaster’s profound effect on physical infrastructure. However, traces of spatial equilibrium mechanisms emerge, particularly in certain industries and regions. Chapter 2 examines labor market outcomes tied to the Venezuelan refugee crisis. Employing a doubly-robust difference-in-differences approach, I find that monthly wages for Brazilian workers in Roraima rose by approximately two percent. This effect is concentrated in sectors and occupations with minimal refugee participation. Chapter 3 develops a novel gender wage gap decomposition that accommodates significant ``complementarity effects,'' where the firm premium is conditional on worker characteristics. These complementarity effects account for nearly 17 percent of the observed wage gap, and, combined with the underrepresentation of women in higher-paying, higher-return firms, explain close to half of the total gap.