M&As Efficiency Gains: Evidence from Bank Branch-level Data (with Bernardo Ricca), Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis (Forthcoming)
International Lending Channel, Bank Heterogeneity and Capital Inflows (Mis)Allocation (with Silvia Marchesi), European Economic Review (2025), 105212.
Banks' Physical Footprint, Digital Payment Technologies and Fintech Growth (with Bernardo Ricca and José Renato Ornelas) -
R&R at Management Science
ANPEC-FEBRABAN Prize for the best paper in banking
Coverage: World Bank, BBC Brasil (in portuguese)
Do physical bank branches moderate the diffusion of digital payment technologies? Does the diffusion of these technologies enable fintechs to expand? To answer these questions, we leverage unexpected bank heists that use explosives and render branches temporarily inoperable. We show that these attacks are not associated with local crime trends and that they deplete the branches’ cash inventory, disrupting their capacity to supply cash services. We show that this disruption leads to persistent increases in digital payments usage and that a smaller cash dependence boosts digital institutions’ growth not only in payment but also in credit markets.
Sanctions and Conflict: the organizational effects of imposing financial frictions (with Nicola Limodio)
Invited to submit to the Review of Financial Studies.
This paper examines how dollar-based financial sanctions reshape militant groups in Pakistan. Using staggered international designations of terrorist leaders linked to administrative data on all registered charities and their boards, we trace how sanctions propagate through charitable networks. Sanctions shift activity and fundraising toward exposed charities and expand leaders’ cross-organization involvement, while increasing attacks, casualties, and splintering. The findings show that domestic intermediation can blunt financial restrictions and intensify conflict.
Unleashing International Trade through Financial Integration: Evidence from a Cross-Border Payment System (with Gustavo S. Cortes and Vinicios P. Sant'Anna)
Leveraging administrative data on the universe of South African exporters (2010–2019), we study how cross-border payment integration affects trade. Exploiting the staggered rollout of an RTGS system across 14 SADC countries, we find bilateral trade among participants rises by about 34%—an effect comparable to an 8.3–12.1 percentage point tariff reduction—with no evidence of diversion away from non-partners. The gains are concentrated in destinations with domestic RTGS systems, weaker pre-existing financial links to South Africa, and among more financially dependent firms, and are mirrored in aggregate country-partner trade volumes.
Enforcement Risk, Credit Supply and Deforestation: Evidence from the Amazon (with Lucas Iten Teixeira)
[draft available upon request]
Regulatory enforceability shapes credit risk even when statutes are unchanged. To study that our paper analyzes the case of anti-deforestation enforcement in the Brazilian Amazon, where satellite detection is mechanically constrained by cloud cover. Beginning in 2013, enforcement responsibilities shifted away from the federal agency, weakening enforcement follow-through. Exploiting seasonal cloudiness, we show that deforestation-related fines fall after decentralization precisely in low-cloud municipality-months, when monitoring was most effective. In the same localities (and months), agricultural credit provision expands and loan-loss provisions decline. Using heterogeneity in banks' ex-ante exposure to deforestation-enforcement risk in other municipalities, we provide evidence that the lending response reflects agricultural credit supply. Finally, deforestation rises after enforcement decentralization and these results are amplified by three times in municipalities with greater agricultural lender presence. Our results highlight that enforcement stringency affects credit supply, magnifying the real effects of regulatory regime changes.
Open Finance and Information Sharing: Experimental Evidence from Brazilian MSMEs (with Giorgia Barboni, Bermardo Ricca, and Jose Renato Ornerlas)
- Funded by IPA Financial Inclusion and JPAL Jobs and Opportunity Initiative
Redress Delayed, Business Denied: Credit Blacklisting and Entrepreneurship (with Leonardo S. Alencar, Pedro Amoni and Henrik Sigstad)
- Funded by IPA Consumer Protection Initiative
Evaluating the take-up of digital programs: Evidence from a debt relief program in Brazil (with Daniel Grimaldi, Jessica Gagete-Miranda, Jose Renato Ornerlas and Diego Vera-Cossio)
Fast Payments and the Cost of International Transactions
Mariani, Lucas Argentieri, Jessica Gagete-Miranda, and Paula Rettl. "Words can hurt: How political communication can change the pace of an epidemic" Covid Economics 12 (2020): 104-137.
Mariani, Lucas Argentieri, and Laurini, Marcio Poletti. "Implicit Inflation and Risk Premiums in the Brazilian Fixed Income Market." Emerging Markets Finance and Trade 53, no. 8 (2017): 1836-1853.
Government-owned Banks and Development: on Unintended Consequences of Bank Privatizations
4th QMUL Economics and Finance Workshop Best Paper
Coverage: World Bank
Nel, Jacobus, and Lucas A. Mariani. Economic impacts of FATF recommendations and grey-listing announcement. Economic Research Southern Africa Working Paper No. 05/2022.