Sebastiao Oliveira

Welcome! I am a fifth-year PhD student in economics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

I study how uncertainty influences firm investment, innovation, and product markets; how equity financing constraints shape the transmission of monetary policy to firms; and how sovereign and corporate debt structures interact with the international transmission of shocks.

During the fall of 2025, I will participate in the Chicago Fed Graduate Student Visitor Program (Finance team). Previously, I was a Dissertation Fellow at the Federal Reserve Board during the summer of 2025 (Capital Markets Section).

You can find my CV here.

Research interests: Corporate finance, international finance, monetary policy.

Email: so28@illinois.edu

Working Papers

Product Life Cycle Heterogeneity in the Transmission of Uncertainty

The Impact of Monetary Policy on Venture Capital Finance, with Jose Carlos Abreu and Eduardo Marinho.

The Equity Constraint Channel of Monetary Policy, with Heitor Almeida, Timothy Johnson, and Yucheng Zhou.

Presented at the 2025 WFA.

Local Currency Debt and Sovereign Rollover Risk, with Jaewon Choi, Jay Rafi, and Josef Zechner.

The Effect of U.S. Monetary Policy on Foreign Firms: Does Debt Maturity Matter?, with Jay Rafi and Pedro Simon.

Revise and Resubmit, Journal of International Economics

Do Exchange Rate Shocks Affect Firms' Production Capacity? The Working Capital Channel

Brems Award for Best Third Year Paper, University of Illinois.

Interpreting Monetary Policy Surprises: Does Central Bank Credibility Matter?, with Pedro Simon.

Publications

How Different is the Brazilian Political System? A Comparative Study (2022), with Odilon Camara and Luciano de Castro. E-Legis 37: 7-37. Media: Exame, Estadão, O Globo

Work in Progress

Duration and Monetary Policy, with Heitor Almeida, Timothy Johnson and Yucheng Zhou.
Auction Design via Market Feedback and the Implications for Takeover Premia, with Dan Bernhardt and Tingjun Liu.
Mutual Funds and Capital Flows, with Jaewon Choi, Changdeok Hong and Jay Rafi.
Evaluating the Effects of Interest Rate Regulation on Credit Card Markets: Evidence from Brazil, with Christiano Arrigoni, Angela Patino and Thiago Trafane.