RESEARCH AREAS: Applied Microeconomics (discrimination, incentive, information), Health Economics, Development Economics.
JOB MARKET PAPER:
Kovacs, R & Powell-Jackson, T. (2026). Gender-based discrimination in healthcare: Audit-study evidence from Kenya.
SELECTED PUBLICATIONS:
ECONOMICS:
Kovacs, R. (2025). Does free maternity care improve access and save lives? Quasi-experimental evidence from Kenya. World Development.
Kovacs, R., Dunaiski, M., Glizzi, M., Hortala-Vallve, R., Murtin, F. (2024) The determinants of trust: findings from large, representative samples in six OECD countries. Economica.
Kovacs, R., Dunaiski M., Tukiainen, J. (2023) Compulsory face mask policies do not affect community mobility in Germany. The Scandinavian Journal of Economics.
Kovacs, R. , Lagarde, M. (2022) Does high workload reduce the quality of healthcare? Evidence from rural Senegal. Journal of Health Economics.
Kovacs, R. , Lagarde, M., & Cairns, J. (2022). Can patients improve the quality of care they receive? Experimental evidence from Senegal. World Development.
Kovacs, R. , Lagarde, M., & Cairns, J. (2020). Overconfident health workers provide lower quality healthcare. Journal of Economic Psychology.
Kovacs, R., Lagarde, M., & Cairns, J. (2019). Measuring patient trust: Comparing measures from a survey and an economic experiment. Health Economics.
PUBLIC HEALTH AND HEALTH POLICY:
Kovacs, R., Nawi, N., & Kjellsson, G. (2026). Immigration-related inequalities across the perinatal mental health care pathway among new parents in Sweden: a population-based cohort study. BMJ Open.
Kovacs, R. (2026). Public Vs. Private: the Quality of Ante-natal Care in Resource-poor Settings. PLOS Public Health.
Ellegård, L. M., Kjellsson, G., Kovacs, R., Zhao, Y. (2025) Patient choice and socioeconomic disparities in the quality of healthcare: Evidence from Swedish registry data. Social Science & Medicine.
Kovacs, R. , Barreto, J., Nunes da Silva, E., et al. (2021). Socioeconomic inequalities in the quality of primary care under Brazil’s national pay-for-performance programme: a longitudinal study of family health teams. The Lancet Global Health.
Wiseman, V., Lagarde, M., Kovacs, R., et al., (2019). Using unannounced standardised patients to obtain data on quality of care in low-income and middle-income countries: Key challenges and opportunities. BMJ Global Health.
Kovacs, R. (2017). The macro-level drivers of intimate partner violence: New evidence from a multilevel dataset. Global Public Health.
WORKING PAPERS:
Kovacs, R., Abuya Y., Powell-Jackson, T. (2026). Rationing under Excess Demand: Evidence on Providers’ Adjustment Margins. Under review.
Excess demand is pervasive in public service delivery, but its consequences depend on how providers allocate scarce capacity. We sent standardised patients -- trained auditors posing as real patients - to 198 primary-care facilities in Nairobi. Across 1,326 pre-scheduled visits, we exploit within-facility variation in workload. We find that when queue length exceeds the typical daily workload per provider, waiting time is 21 minutes longer (0.4 SD). We find no reduction in consultation effort and no statistically significant deterioration in care quality or access. This suggests short-run congestion is borne primarily through users' time and need not reduce service quality.
Kovacs, R., Powell-Jackson, T., Hone, T., Barreto, J., Nunes da Silva, E. Paying our way to better health? The impact of public spending on health outcomes in Brazil. Minor revisions requested by Health Economics.
It remains unclear whether government can improve health outcomes by increasing public spending on health care. We study the effect of an increase in public spending on primary care on health care-seeking and mortality in Brazil, using an event study difference-in-differences design that covers 5,443 municipalities over 11 years. We exploit the staggered introduction of a national programme called PMAQ that increased public spending on primary care by 6% in participating municipalities. Results suggest that this substantial increase in public spending did not translate into better health on average, with coefficients precisely estimated around zero. We examine a number of potential explanations for the null finding, including corruption and the spending increase being too small. We find that the effect of public spending on health outcomes is moderated by the level of local development, as public spending only reduces mortality in wealthy municipalities.
ONGOING PROJECTS
Parents’ mental health: Using rich Swedish registry data, I study the economics of parental mental health and evaluate social policy and healthcare interventions aimed at prevention. I estimate (i) the causal effect of a parental-leave reform increasing fathers’ involvement in childcare and (ii) the impact of talking-therapy provision on parents’ mental health, economic outcomes, and child wellbeing.
Mental health of healthcare providers: Using data from standardised patients in Kenya, I examine the link between providers’ mental health and the quality of care they deliver.