Full Professor of Economics, University of São Paulo
Research Director, Center for the Studies of Religion and Public Policy (CERP USP)
Invited Researcher, The Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL)
Board of directors of the Italian-Brazilian Economic Association.
Email: rcorbi@usp.br
CV in English (CV Lattes in Portuguese)
Ph.D. in Economics, London Business School, UK, 2014.
Fields: political economy, labor economics, the economics of culture and religion, and economic growth and development.
Publications
Regional Transfer Multipliers (with Elias Papaioannou and Paolo Surico). The Review of Economic Studies, Volume 86, Issue 5, October 2019, Pages 1901–1934 [link]
Featured in VoxEU.org, May/2019
2020 Haralambos Simeonidis prize for best paper in Economics by a Brazilian scholar
Church Tax Exemption and Structure of Religious Markets: a Dynamic Structural Analysis (with Fabio Miessi Sanches). Forthcoming at the American Economic Journal: Microeconomics.
Featured in The Economist, Nexo Jornal, O Estado de São Paulo, Jornal USP
Best paper in Applied Microeconomics award at the 43rd Meeting of the Brazilian Econometric Society
The Decline of Religiosity in America: Evidence from a Structural Model of Endogenous Church Differentiation (with Fabio A. Miessi Sanches). Revise and Resubmit at the Journal of Political Economy: Microeconomics.
Internal Migration and Labor Market Adjustments in the Presence of Nonwage Compensation (with Tiago Ferraz and Renata Narita). Forthcoming at the the Journal of Development Economics.
Edited Democracy: Media Manipulation and the News Coverage of Presidential Debates (with Alexsandros Cavgias, Luis Meloni and Lucas Novaes), Forthcoming at Comparative Political Studies
Natural Disasters and Preferences for the Environment: Evidence from the Impressionable Years [link open version] (with Chiara Falco). Economics Letters, Volume 222, January 2023
Female judges and in-group bias in labor courts (with Rafael Ferreira, Jaqueline Oliveira and Danilo Souza). Economics Bulletin, vol. 41(3), 2021.
The Cost of Gendered Attitudes on a Female Candidate: Evidence from Google Trends (with Pedro Picchetti). Economics Letters, Volume 196, November 2020
Unintended Consequences of Unemployment Insurance: Evidence from Stricter Eligibility Criteria in Brazil (with Cristiano Carvalho and Renata Narita). Economics Letters, Volume 162, p. 157-161, 2018
Income shocks and Mortality of Low-Wage Workers: Evidence from Wage Allowances in Brazil (with Caio Pedro Castro). Revise and Resubmit at the Journal of Development Economics
Working papers
Internal Migration and Religious Change: Evidence from Brazil’s Evangelical Rise (with Tiago Ferraz and Fabio Miessi Sanches).
Emotional Rhetoric and Political Competition Under Authoritarian Regimes: Evidence from Brazilian Congressional Speeches (with Alan Funtowicz). Submitted.
Labor Courts, Job Search and Employment: Evidence from a Labor Reform in Brazil (with Renata Narita, Danilo Souza and Rafael Ferreira). Draft coming soon.
Featured in CNN Business, Valor Econômico, UOL Economia, Crusoé
Payroll Tax, Employment and Labor Market Concentration (with Eric Baumgartner and Renata Narita). Submitted.
Estimating the Employment and Educational Effects of Vocational Training: the Role of School Quality (with Cristiano Carvalho and Rodrigo De-Losso). Submitted.
When Are Politically Irrelevant Events Relevant to Election Outcomes?
In Progress
The Gospel According to Media: Religious Radio and the Rise of Pentecostalism in Brazil (with Bruno Komatsu).
Size of Legislature, Public Spending and Political Budget Cycle.
Supply-side Secularization: Evidence from Religious Entrepreneurs in Brazil
Migration and Religious Change: Internal Mobility and the Rise of Evangelicalism in Brazil
Op-eds
Por que o avanço evangélico estagnou e não deve voltar?, featured in FOLHA DE SÃO PAULO, Jun/2025
O risco de misturar religião e política no Código Eleitoral, featured in O GLOBO, May/2025
Deve-se aumentar a isenção de impostos para entidades religiosas? Não, featured in FOLHA DE SÃO PAULO, Jan/2025
Os benefícios da reforma trabalhista na ponta do lápis, featured in Crusoé, Jun/2022
O Congresso e as isenções tributárias das igrejas, featured in Nexo Jornal, Feb/2021
Transfer multipliers: Evidence from Brazil’s Fundo de Participação dos Municípios, featured in VoxEU.org, May/2019
Other Publications
The Components of Economic Freedom, Income and Growth: an Empirical Analysis”. Estudos Econômicos, 2007, vol.37, n.3, pp. 515-545.
The Empirical Determinants of Happiness in Brazil (in portuguese, with Naercio A. Menezes-Filho). Revista de Economia Política, 2006, vol.26, n.4
Teaching
Econometrics II (undergraduate)
Introduction to Microeconomics (undergraduate)
Introduction to Macroeconomics (undergraduate)
Econometrics I (graduate)
Political Economy of Development (graduate)