Research

Working papers

The Long-Term Effect of Admission to a Top-Quality University on Crime (with S. Duryea, R. Ribas and B. Sampaio). R&R, Journal of Labor Economics.


We investigate the effect of attending a top-quality, tuition-free university on future criminal charges. Using data on students' application to a public university and the universe of criminal records in Brazil, we document that admitted students are 69% less likely to be prosecuted in the decade following application. This effect is mostly driven by a reduction in violent crimes among low-income students. Changes in educational attainment, incapacitation, financial distress, unemployment, and earnings do not explain our findings. Our results suggest that the returns to expanding access of low-income students to high quality universities extend far beyond job opportunities.

Changing the Pyramids: The Impact of Broadband Internet on Firm Employment Structures (with A. V. Barbosa, D. Casagrande, and P. Maier). [SSRN working paper]. Under preparation for resubmission.


We study how the introduction of fast internet affects the occupational and educational structure of firms. We circumvent endogeneity issues by exploiting the staggered technology roll-out in Brazil and a physical constraint in internet connectivity. Results show peculiar polarization effect on establishments’ employment structures and significant job losses in response to broadband availability. The patterns are complex, such that they cannot be fully explained by the traditional skill-biased technological change or routinization hypotheses found for computerization and automation technologies. The consistent expansion of the management layer across all types of firms strongly supports predictions of organizational theories. Further, it indicates that broadband has introduced more nonroutine problems to be solved by managers and that it is mainly used as a communication technology. Overall, our findings suggest that the resulting structural changes are driven by efficiency-seeking firm behavior and are an important mechanism helping firms to survive in the market.

Mandatory CEO Non-Duality, Managerial Agency, and Shareholder Value (with R. Guimarães). [SSRN working paper]. Under preparation for resubmission.


This paper examines the effects of a mandatory CEO non-duality-oriented governance reform on shareholder value. Three key findings emerge. First, regression discontinuity results show a positive market reaction to the announcement of the regulation. Second, difference-in-differences estimates reveal progressive and long-lasting impacts following the staggered duality rupture. Lastly, after the splitting event, firms trade off leverage for disposable cash, which ultimately leads to increased investments and profits. The findings suggest the impacts are driven by mitigation of managerial agency issues and emphasize that coercive rules may have distinct effects compared to recommendation-based regulations in contexts with weak shareholder protection institutions.

Does CEO Non-Duality Affect Earnings Management? Evidence from Brazil (with R. F. Araújo and V. G. Martins). [SSRN working paper]. Submitted.


We exploit a governance regulation enacted in Brazil to examine whether CEO non-duality influences earnings management. The natural experiment allows us to compare firms mandated to terminate CEO-chairman positions with pre-mandate non-duality firms in a staggered difference-in-differences design. Employing recent developments in the methodology, our results show that treated firms reduced their discretionary accruals while keeping real activities unchanged, suggesting an improvement in financial reporting quality. Our findings are policy-relevant as they underscore that a coercive CEO-chairman separation may emerge as a key mechanism in corporate governance, capable of mitigating agency conflicts by curbing managerial opportunism associated with earnings manipulation.

Work in progress

Published and forthcoming papers

Policy work and institutional documents