Claudio is Senior Researcher at INCAE Business School, lecturer for the Economics Department and Researcher for the Instituto de Investigaciones en Ciencias Económicas at the University of Costa Rica. His research is on Health, Labor and Development Economics focusing on experimental situations in Latin America. Through his work, he analyzed malaria eradication and primary care attention in Costa Rica, participation in an employment subsidy in Chile and nutrition labelling in Colombia. He is also an international consultant for United Nations and IADB. He received his PhD in Economics from PUC Chile.
Contact:
INCAE Business School
Campus Walter Kissling Gam, La Garita
Alajuela, Costa Rica.
Phone: +506 2437 2200
Email: claudio.mora [at] incae.edu
Publications
6. Future health expenditures and its determinants in Latin America and the Caribbean: A multi-country projection study (with Krishna D. Rao and others)
The Lancet Regional Health - Americas (forthcoming)
5. Maintaining essential health services during a pandemic: lessons from Costa Rica’s COVID-19 response (with Andy Pearson and Andrea M. Prado)
BMJ Global Health
4. Primary Health Care and Mortality: Evidence from Costa Rica (with Madeline Pesec and Andrea M. Prado)
Journal of Health Economics, Vol. 93, Jan 2024 [Accepted Manuscript]
Featured in: En la Academia
3. Peer Effects in the Adoption of a Youth Employment Subsidy (with Tomás Rau)
The Review of Economics and Statistics, Vol. 105, No. 3, 2023.
Featured in: Diario Financiero, La Tercera
2. The effect of randomly providing Nutri-Score information on actual purchases in Colombia (with Jeremy Chi-Ying and Luisa Tovar)
Nutrients, Vol. 11, No. 3, February 2019.
Featured in: FoodNavigator
1. Can Benefits from Malaria Eradication be Increased? Evidence from Costa Rica
Economic Development and Cultural Change, Vol. 66, No. 3, pp. 585-628, April 2018.
Working Papers
Health Workforce Reallocation in the Aftermath of Conflict: Evidence from Colombia (with Paul Rodríguez-Lesmes, Mounu Prem, and Juan F. Vargas)
Abstract. Healthcare workers are in great deficit worldwide, especially in rural and vulnerable areas of developing countries. By leveraging a permanent ceasefire that ended over five decades of armed conflict between the Colombian government and the FARC insurgency, we study the extent to which conflict termination affected the health workforce gap between areas more exposed to FARC violence and other places. Based on individual-level administrative records of all healthcare workers in Colombia and a difference-in-differences strategy, we find that the ceasefire caused a differential 11.4% decrease in the share of employed healthcare workers per 1,000 people in places more exposed to FARC violence relative to the rest of the country. We find a stronger decrease among healthcare workers with less human capital levels and open-ended labor contracts. We show that this effect is likely explained by lifting mobility restrictions in previously violent areas, and document that, because the net reduction in healthcare workers increased the within-municipality share of (more productive) physicians, it did not translate into a deterioration of mortality rates or healthcare service provision.
Research Projects
Product differentiation and buyer-supplier relationships: Evidence from coffee trade (with Octavio Martínez)
Policy Projects
2023
Preventing human trafficking in Latin America: Results from a randomized experiment in girls and teenagers
Donor: Interamerican Development Bank. Partner: Fundación Paniamaor. Participating countries: Costa Rica.
2022
Understanding the antibiotics market and policy environment to address antimicrobial resistance
Donor: Wellcome Trust. Partner: Center for Global Development. Participating countries: Brazil, India, Nigeria.
2021
Identifying best practices, challenges, and lessons learned in the response to COVID-19 and ability to maintain EHS during the pandemic
Donors: Gates Ventures, Rockefeller Foundation. Partners: John Hopkins U., Brown U. Participating countries: Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ghana, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Uganda.
Design and analysis of price protection alternatives for coffee growers
Donor: BID Invest. Partner: MERCON. Participating countries: Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua.
2020
Determinantes of green coffee prices in Latin America
Donor: FairTrade. Partners: FairTrade, United Nations CEPAL.
Policy papers:
Speculation and price volatility in the coffee market
The main drivers of arabica coffee prices in Latin America
Future Health Spending and Treatment Patterns in Latin America and the Caribbean
Donor: Inter-American Development Bank (IADB). Partner: John Hopkins. Participating countries: Costa Rica, Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, Peru, Trinidad and Tobago.
[Policy Paper] [webinar]
Evaluating the preparedness for technological change of SMEs
Donor: IADB, MICITT. Participating countries: Costa Rica, Nicaragua.
Determination of the optimal interest rate, identification of promising professional careers in the labor market, and coverage analysis
Donor: National Commission of Loans for Education (CONAPE). Participating countries: Costa Rica.
[Webinar] [Webinar] [Interactive Graph]
Featured in: La Nacion, Seminario Universidad (one, two), Teletica, Diario Extra, Monumental, Desayunos Radio Universidad, Rumbo Economico, ElPais.cr.
2019
Design and implementation of a impact evaluation methodology for the Programa Crecimiento Verde
Donor: IADB. Partner: PROCOMER. Participating countries: Costa Rica.