Research
Working Papers and Forthcoming Papers
Moved to Poverty? A Legacy of Apartheid in South Africa , (joint with Bladimir Carrillo and Wilman Iglesias) - Conditionally Accepted, American Economic Journal: Economic Policy.
Presented at RIDGE-LACEA Inequality and Poverty.(2022), 43º Meeting of the Brazilian Econometric Society (2021), RIDGE-Economic History (2021), LANE HOPE (2021), Applied Young Economist Webinar (2020), UNIFESSPA (2021), FGV-EPGE (2020), and UFPE (2020).
This paper examines the consequences of the homeland system set up by the apartheid government in South Africa. This system forced Black people to live in homelands and as a consequence several million individuals were moved to such areas during the 1960s and 1970s, resulting in one of history’s largest segregation policy experiments. We examine how and why relocation to the homelands affected human capital attainment. We exploit the staggered timing of homeland establishment in a cross-cohort identification strategy that compares migrants and homeland natives. Our basic finding is that moving to the homelands during childhood significantly reduces educational attainment. The magnitude of this effect is particularly pronounced when the exposure occurs at younger ages, consistent with the importance of events and circumstances during critical periods of child development. The policy also had important consequences on individual success in the labor market: exposed cohorts are significantly less likely to work and have lower income in adulthood. Our examination of possible mechanisms suggests an important role for place effects. Moving to the homelands at earlier ages implies greater childhood exposure to poorer neighborhoods, and it disproportionally reduces human capital attainment. The findings of this paper illustrate how discriminatory policies against specific ethnic groups can have long-lasting consequences and increase ethnic inequality
Trade and Health: Evidence on Trade Reform, Public Health Policy, and Infant Mortality in Brazil, (joint with Danyelle Branco and Bladimir Carrillo) December 2021, Revise and Resubmit, Journal of Development Economics
Using a uniquely rich set of data sources spanning more than 3,000 Brazilian municipalities over a horizon of 25 years, we investigate whether and to what extent trade liberalization affects infant mortality. We exploit variation in the baseline industry composition across locations, together with differences in import tariff cuts across industries, for identification. We estimate a robust decline in infant mortality in areas with greater exposure to the tariff cuts. We also find evidence of an increase in the use of public health services among women of childbearing ages and infants. This pattern in the data is consistent with the hypothesis that worse labor market opportunities make it less costly undertake inexpensive yet critical health-improving behaviors that are time-intensive. We also document that the rollout of a community-based intervention that brings basic health services to the home in a flexible fashion lowers the impacts of the trade reform on infant mortality, providing further evidence in favor of the parental time mechanism. The findings of this paper illustrate that trade policy can have important implications for the household production of child health status and returns of public health policies.
Work in Progress
Women's Political Participation and Conflict
Returns to hospital care in Brazil ,(joint with Bladimir Carrillo and Danyelle Branco)
Getting a job in the COVID-19 Recession: Gender, Family, and Race ,(Joint with Cecilia Machado)