Research

Working papers

Right-wing populism in the tropics: Economic crisis, the political gender gap, and the election of Bolsonaro (joint work with Manuel Santos Silva) [VoxEU] [Le Grand Continent] R&R Journal of Development Economics

This paper investigates how a large labor market shock contributed to the 2018 election of far-right Jair Bolsonaro as president of Brazil. Using a shift-share approach, we find that gender heterogeneity in shock exposure predicts electoral outcomes. Male-specific labor demand shocks increase support for Bolsonaro, but female-specific shocks have the opposite effect. Additional results suggest that men gravitate towards a politician that exacerbates masculine stereotypes, as a way of compensating for losses in social and economic status. Women, on the other hand, when hit by the shock, reject Bolsonaro’s political agenda in favor of a more pro-social platform. 

Between sticky floors and glass ceilings: The effect of trade liberalization on double discrimination in Brazil (joint work with Manuel Santos Silva) R&R Economic Development and Cultural Change

This article investigates how trade liberalization affects gender and racial pay inequalities in the short run. Guided by an intersectional perspective, we consider overlapping effects across gender, race, and wage levels. We exploit Brazil’s trade liberalization process (1988–95) as a natural experiment. On average, liberalization increased wages of nonwhite women relative to men and white women. However, this average effect masks substantial heterogeneity. When we decompose pay gaps along the wage distribution, we find that liberalization increased racial and gender discrimination at low wages, which reinforced preexisting ‘sticky floors’ for nonwhite women. In contrast, at the top of the distribution, liberalization reduced racial discrimination, which mitigated existing ‘glass ceilings’ by race.

Work in progress

Natural disasters and intimate partner violence: Evidence from Peru (joint work with Yuanwei Xu) [draft available upon request]

This paper investigates if women experience higher levels of intimate partner violence (IPV) in the aftermath of earthquakes in Peru. We focus specifically on individual, societal, and institutional factors explaining men's violent behavior and women's vulnerability to violence. Combining household-level data on IPV and spatial data on all earthquakes that happened in the country between 2000 and 2009, we show that exposure to very strong earthquakes increases the incidence of IPV by more than ten percentage points. Additional results suggest that the increase in IPV following earthquakes is driven by an increase in male intra-household economic power and a rise in alcohol consumption. In addition, we document substantial heterogeneous effects for urban and rural areas, with the former registering a rise in IPV and the latter experiencing substantial decreases in it. This pattern seems to be partially explained by differences in intra-household dynamics, with couples being more likely to cooperate in rural but less in urban areas. Finally, we document an important mitigating role of protective institutions in urban areas following earthquakes. More specifically, we find that having a women justice center (WJC) in urban districts completely offsets the earthquake effect.

Religious supply and local violence (joint work with Krisztina Kis-Katos and Manuel Santos Silva)

Job Loss and Political Entry (joint work with Aiko Schmeißer)

Publications

Barros, Laura and Ute Rink (2021) Spending or saving? Female empowerment and financial decisions in a matrilineal society, World Development, 141, p.105342