Research

Job Market Paper

Technological Displacement and Modern Slavery: Evidence From Local Labor Markets (Joint with Y. Barreto and Gil do Vigor)

Presented at the 46º SBE, 2025; UNU-WIDER/ISID Development Conference, 2026; Canadian Economic Association, 2026; Stone Center Summer School on Socioeconomic Opportunity and Inequality, 2026. Scheduled: Jobs and Development Conference, 2026
Abstract: Despite widespread expectations that economic development would eradicate slavery, modern forms of labor coercion persist. This paper asks whether technological change sustains or mitigates them. We link the heterogeneous adoption of labor-saving genetically engineered soybean seeds and labor-intensive maize double-cropping technology to a new dataset covering the universe of federal anti-slavery inspections in Brazil and their rescued workers. We find that greater suitability for GE soybean seeds increased reported cases of forced labor, while suitability for double-cropping reduced them. The additional cases appear in cattle ranching, the sector that hires displaced agricultural laborers, and not in the crops that adopted the technologies. The displacement of at-risk workers emerges as the central mechanism. Both technologies shift the employment of workers who match the demographic profile of the rescued by far more than that of the average worker. A model of coercion in local labor markets rationalizes these findings. Displacement makes desperate workers easier to find even as it erodes the wage that coercion saves, and slavery expands where the cost falls proportionally faster than the gain. Consistent with the model, the coercion sector’s wage moves against the wages of the displaced workers’ alternatives. The response of forced labor to job losses is about 40 percent larger than the response to job gains, suggesting an asymmetry in which coercion expands faster than it recedes. The estimates also come entirely from municipalities where the coercion sector’s land was dispersed, with no response where it was concentrated, a pattern consistent with market concentration and coercion acting as substitutes, one a legal and the other an illegal way of reducing wages

Published and Forthcoming Papers

Illegal Markets and Contemporary Slavery: Evidence from the Mahogany Trade in the Amazon (Joint with Y. Barreto, R. Tigre, and D. Castro)

[Gated] Press Coverage: VoxDevPresented at the 44º SBE, 2022 Journal of Development Economics - Vol. 166, Jan. (2024): nº103177

The Long-Run Economic Consequences of Iodine Supplementation. (joint with B. Carrillo and B. Sampaio)

IZA Discussion Paper: No 14203 ; [Gated] Presented at the REAP 2019; 41º SBE, 2019; RIDGE Impact Evaluation Network, 2020. Journal of Health Economics, Vol. 79, Sep. (2021): nº10249, (Lead article)

Do extended school day programs affect performance in college admission tests? (joint with G. Bayma, C. Melo, L. Sampaio, and M. Mendonça)

[Gated] Press Coverage: ExamePresented at the 41º SBE, 2019.Brazilian Review of Econometrics, Vol. 40, No. 2 (2020): 232-266

Working Papers

Economic Production and Supernatural Beliefs: Evidence from Pastoral Societies in Africa (Joint with B. Carrillo and B. Sampaio)

IZA Discussion Paper: No 14938Journal of Development Economics, Revision Requested.Presented at the LACEA Annual Meeting, 2021; 43º SBE, 2021; ASREC Conference,2022; CNEH, 2022; Ridge Historical Development Workshop, 2022; LEAP, 2022; Oxford Grad. Seminar in Economic and Social History, 2022; ASREC Europe Conference, 2022; LAMES Annual Meeting, 2022; 44º SBE, 2022; WGAPE-CEGA, 2023
Abstract: Why do supernatural beliefs persist in some societies more than others? We argue that the mobility inherent in pastoral production weakens the social conditions that sustain witchcraft, and show that individuals from historically more pastoral ethnic groups in Africa are less likely to believe in it today, a result that holds when we instrument pastoralism with its ecological determinants. Pastoralism also reduces witch-related violence, and the elasticity of violence with respect to beliefs is large, so that even modest reductions in beliefs translate into substantial reductions in violence. Keywords: supernatural beliefs, pastoralism, witch-related violence

Minimum Wages and the Human Capital of the Next Generation (Joint with B. Carrillo, W. Iglesias, and B. Sampaio)

Journal of Development Economics, Revision Requested.Runner-up for the 2021 SBE Best Paper in Applied Microeconomics.Presented at the LAMES Annual Meeting, 2021; 43º SBE, 2021; ASSA - AEA Annual Meeting, 2022
Abstract: Can minimum wage policies improve the long-run outcomes of workers' children? We study the 1966 Fair Labor Standards Act Amendments, the largest expansion of the U.S. minimum wage, exploiting geographic variation in the share of workers earning below the new floor and the timing of policy adoption. Childhood exposure to the reform increased adult human capital and economic self-sufficiency, driven by an immediate and persistent rise in parental income, especially for mothers and families at the bottom of the distribution. Keywords: minimum wage; human capital; intergenerational effects; parental income

Coercion at the Frontier: Property Rights and Modern Slavery in the Amazon (Joint with Y. Barreto and Gil do Vigor)

Scheduled: All California Labor Economics Conference (ACLEC), 2026
Abstract: Can securing land reduce modern slavery? On weakly governed frontiers, appropriating land requires clearing and occupying it, work done by geographically isolated workers kept in slavery conditions. The prospect of private appropriation is what sustains the demand for coerced labor. We test this mechanism in the Brazilian Amazon, exploiting the staggered expansion of indigenous lands and ecological protected areas, which remove land from the appropriable pool. Formal protection strongly reduces slave labor and rescued workers; the effects are concentrated in cattle ranching and extraction, the activities most tied to land grabbing, and protected municipalities show less pasture expansion and greater forest retention. Property rights curb coercion by removing the land rent it serves. Keywords: Property Rights, Modern Slavery, Brazilian Amazon

Long-Term Effects of a Commodity Boom: Rubber Slavery in the Amazon (Joint with H. Laudares, D. Murillo, H. Paredes, and F. Valencia)

IDB Working Paper Series: No 1764CAF Working Paper: No 2026/0 2Press Coverage: Voces (In Spanish)Presented at the LACEA Annual Meeting, 2025Funded by the Inter-American Development Bank’s Gender and Diversity Lab and by the Development Bank of Latin America and the Caribbean (CAF)
Abstract: At the height of the Amazon Rubber Boom of 1870-1914, an opera house was built in the middle of the rainforest. What remained when the boom ended? Using ecological rubber suitability as an instrument and a regression discontinuity around historical concession boundaries, we show that areas with greater rubber presence enjoyed short-term gains by 1920 but have lower income, sparser population, higher inequality, greater Indigenous extinction, and more deforestation a century later. These reversals, consistent across Brazil, Colombia, Peru, and Bolivia, indicate that the boom's short-lived wealth reinforced extractive institutions and violence against Indigenous peoples. Keywords: commodity booms, extractive institutions, Amazon

Market Power and Modern Slavery (Joint with Y. Barreto and Gil do Vigor)

Abstract: Does employer market power breed modern slavery? Market power and forced labor are two routes to the same rent, one legal and one criminal. Defining labor markets by municipality, farm activity, and year in Brazil, we match land concentration to the universe of federal anti-slavery inspections. More concentrated markets show fewer slavery findings and fewer rescued workers. The result holds with a leave-one-out instrument for local concentration and is not driven by enforcement targeting, since inspections respond to anonymous complaints. Market power and coercion are substitutes, not complements. Keywords: Modern slavery, Monopsony, Labor coercion

The Lasting Costs of Lost Savings: Liquidity Freeze, Recession, and Equality (Joint with Y. Barreto)

Presented at the LACEA Annual Meeting, 2023; 45º SBE, 2023; NEUDC, 2024; WEFIDEV 2024
Abstract: Can a temporary seizure of liquid assets leave permanent scars on local economies? We study Brazil's 1990 Collor Plan, which unexpectedly froze more than 80% of the country's liquid assets to fight hyperinflation, exploiting cross-municipality variation in exposure to freezeable deposits. More exposed municipalities experienced large declines in formal employment, wages, and the number of firms that persist three decades later, driven by a lasting disruption of financial intermediation that hit small firms hardest and pushed workers into informality. Keywords: liquidity shocks, local labor markets, financial intermediation

Moral Values and the Gender Divide in Intimate Partner Violence Attitudes (Joint with S. Anderson and P. Francois)

Presented at the 12th Toulouse Economics and Biology Workshop (Sex Differences in Human Life History Evolution)
Abstract: Women are consistently more likely than men to justify intimate partner violence. Why do the primary victims of such violence condone it more than its potential perpetrators? Using variation in traditional oral narratives across African ethnic groups, we show that this gender gap is substantially larger in societies whose cultural traditions emphasize communal values, which stress obedience and conformity, over universalist values, which stress fairness and individual rights. We develop a model of gender-norm internalization in which women, who bear a disproportionate share of the burdens imposed by traditional norms, face stronger incentives to internalize the legitimacy of the prevailing gender order, which explains why beliefs that legitimize violence against women persist among women themselves. Keywords: intimate partner violence, moral values, gender norms

Selected Work in Progress

Witchcraft as Governance (Joint with E. Le Rossignol)

Funded by the ASREC Mini-Grant in Religion and Economic Development and by the CEPR ReCIPE grant.

Technical Notes and Policy Work (In Portuguese)

Evaluation and Monitoring of Public Policies of the Ministry of Citizenship. Gappe Report; Sponsor: Ministry of Citizenship, Brazil (2020).

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