Research

• The Legacies of War for Ukraine with Ellen Munroe, Anastasiia Nosach, Eleonora Guarnieri, Juan Felipe Riaño, Ana Tur-Prats, and Felipe Valencia Caicedo. Economic Policy, 2023. Editor's choice.

This survey article reviews the literature on the multifaceted consequences of historical conflict. We revisit three key topics, which are especially relevant for the current Ukrainian context. 1) The negative long-term impact of bombing campaigns and political repression against civilians. 2) The interplay between forced migration, refugees and conflict. 3) The role of gender and war, with a special focus on sex ratios and conflict-related sexual violence. We conclude with an empirical investigation of the ongoing Russian-Ukrainian conflict, including historical determinants such as ethnic populations, historical political repression and voting outcomes.

• Missionaries and Soldiers in the Forging of Modern Paraguay In F. Valencia Caicedo (Ed.), Roots of Underdevelopment: A New Economic and Political History of Latin America and the Caribbean (pp. 401–431). Springer International Publishing. With Felipe Valencia Caicedo

This chapter examines two historical events that shaped the Paraguayan nation: Jesuit missions in the Guaraní region and the War of the Triple Alliance. We revisit the literature on the effects of the religious order on human capital, stressing causal identification strategies, as well as on the conflict’s impact on socioeconomic outcomes and gender norms. In addition, we show novel evidence on the cultural mechanisms of missions and present a new analysis of the marriage market for postwar Paraguay. We conclude and suggest directions for future research, indicating additional events relevant to the making of modern Paraguay.

• "Cultural Distance and the Local State: Fiscal Responses to Refugee Shocks" (Working Paper)

This paper shows that cultural mismatch shapes the local state’s response to refugee inflows. I study Switzerland, where asylum seekers are dispersed across cantons under a quasi-random assignment regime, and combine cantonal expenditure accounts with origin-specific asylum application shocks and a standardized measure of cultural distance. Exposure to culturally more distant shocks induces a systematic and selective fiscal expansion: cantons increase spending on education, security, preventive healthcare, and public transport (with weaker evidence for road transport), while effects are small or absent in cultural amenities and some service categories. The results are robust to stringent pre-trend diagnostics, placebo timing, and leave-one-shock-out exercises. The paper contributes new evidence on how cultural frictions translate into state action and outlines administrative and preference-based mechanisms, including validation of the cultural-distance measure using a canton-targeted survey of Swiss residents.

• "The effect of large-scale public infrastructure construction on career choice: evidence from Itaipu" (Working Paper)

This paper studies the effects of the construction of the Itaipu hydroelectric dam on the number of graduates with a STEM major in Paraguay. I use data from the 1992 census of Paraguay and focus on individuals who completed a university degree. Results suggest that the dam's construction positively influenced individuals to get a STEM degree. Moreover, I find a positive effect for individuals between 12 and 17 years old in 1978. I do not find effects on individuals younger and older than these cohorts. Overall, my findings suggest that expected labor demand and preferences drive the results.

• "Entendiendo la clase media en Paraguay" with Herib Caballero, Luis Ortiz, Juan Carlos Pane, and Fabricio Vázquez.