Francisco Costa

Working Papers

• Powerful Forests: The Welfare Implications of Deforestation for the Power Sector
  with Rafael Araujo, Vinícius Hector, and  Marcelo Sant'Anna.  [policy brief] [coverage: Valor, ((O))Eco, Globo] 

• Climate Barriers to Democratic Participation
  with Vítor Calafate and João Paulo Pessoa. submitted. 

• Structural Change Through Environmental Regulation: Evidence from São Paulo's Fire Ban
  with Francisco Luis Lima, and Leticia Nunes. [coverage: Globo Rural, Nexo, ((O))Eco, Visão Agro]  

• Quantifying the Carbon Preserved by Protected Areas in the Amazon
  with Rafael Araujo, Arthur Bragança, Marcelo Sant'Anna, Eduardo Adames, and Frank Gentile. submitted.

• The Local and the Firm: Divergent Immigration Outcomes in Brazil
  with Wagner Oliveira. submitted.

• Protected Area Erasure Accelerates Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon
  with  Caio Moretz-Sohn. R&R at Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists.

• National Borders and the Conservation of Nature
  with Robin Burgess and Benjamin Olken. [Coverage: Washington Post, VoxDev] Journal of the European Economic Association, conditionally accepted pending replication package.

Publications

Environmental Economics

1. Efficient Conservation of the Brazilian Amazon: Estimates from a Dynamic Model
   with Rafael Araujo and Marcelo Sant'Anna.  

   • Review of Economic Studies, 2026. [publisher] [working paper] [replication files] [Coverage: VoxDev] 

2. Drying the Wetland: Water Scarcity in the Brazilian Pantanal
   with Rafael Araujo and Vinícius Hector.  

   • Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, 2026. [publisher] [working paper]

3. The Environmental Costs of Political Interference: Evidence from Power Plants in the Amazon
   with Dimitri Szerman and Juliano Assunção. 

   • Journal of Public Economics, 2025 (Haralambos Simeonidis Prize). [publisher] [working paper] 

4. Too Hot to Learn? Evidence from High School Dropouts in Brazil
   with Diana Goldemberg.  

   • Economics Letters, 2025. [publisher] [working paper] [replication files] [Coverage: Estadão]

5. The Deforestation Effects of Trade and Agricultural Productivity in Brazil
   with Igor Carreira and Joao Paulo Pessoa.

   • Journal of Development Economics, 2024 [publisher] [working paper] [replication files] [Coverage: LSE Business Review, VoxLACEA]

6. Going Viral: Public Attention and Environmental Action in the Amazon
   with Rafael Araujo and Teevrat Garg. 

   • Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, 2024. [publisher] [working paper] [replication files] [Coverage: Nature Climate Change, UCSD Today]

7. The Impact of Climate Change on Risk and Return in Indian Agriculture
   with Fabien Forge, Jason Garred, and Joao Paulo Pessoa. 

   • Environmental and Resource Economics, 2023  (Lead Article) [publisher] [working paper]

8. Hysteresis and the Welfare Effect of Corrective Policies: Theory and Evidence from an Energy Saving Program
   with François Gerard. 

   • Journal of Political Economy, 2021 [publisher] [working paper] [web appendix] [replication files] [Coverage: VoxDev]

Development Economics

9. Seeds of Disparity:  the Gender Land Divide from Brazil's Agricultural Transition
   with Rafael Araujo, Bruna Borges, and Kelly Santos. 

   • Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, 2025. [publisher] [working paper] [replication files]

10. Local Economic Impacts of Hydroelectric Power Plants: Evidence from Brazil
    with Dimitri Szerman and Juliano Assunção. 

    • Economía LACEA Journal, 2025.  [publisher] [working paper] 

11. How to Attract Physicians to Underserved Areas? Policy Recommendations from a Structural Model
    with Leticia Nunes and Fabio Sanches. 

    • Review of Economics and Statistics, 2024 [publisher] [working paper] [replication files] [Coverage: VoxDev, Estadão, Valor]

12. Stop Suffering! Economic Downturns and Pentecostal Upsurge
    with Angelo Marcantonio and Rudi Rocha.

    • Journal of the European Economic Association, 2023 [publisher] [working paper] [slides] [replication files] [Coverage: Folha, Folha 2, Café da Manhã]

13. Winners and Losers from China's Ascension in International Trade: a Structural Approach
    with Joao Paulo Pessoa. 

    • Brazilian Review of Econometrics, 2019 [publisher]

14. Homicides and the Age of Criminal Responsibility: A Density Discontinuity Approach
    with João de Faria, Felipe Iachan, and Bárbara Caballero. 

    • Economía LACEA Journal, 2018 [publisher] [working paper] [replication files] [Coverage: O Globo, Exame.com, JB]

15. Effort Complementarity and Team Size, An Experimental Analysis of Moral Hazard in Teams
    with Joisa Dutra.

    • Economics Bulletin, 2018 [publisher]

16. Winners and Losers from a Commodities-for-Manufactures Trade Boom
    with Jason Garred and Joao Paulo Pessoa. 

    • Journal of International Economics, 2016  [publisher] [working paper] [web appendix] [concordances and replication files] [Coverage: VoxEU, VoxLACEA]

Surveys

17. Deforestation
    with Allan Hsiao, Heitor Pelegrina, and Eduardo Souza-Rodrigues. VoxDev Lit, 2025. [slides]

18. Beyond the Pulpit: Pentecostal Growth and Economic Transformations in Brazil
    with Angelo Marcantonio and Rudi Rocha. In Economic, Religion and Public Policy, edited by Vladimir Maltsev and Nirvikar Singh, 2025.

(Oct, 2026)