In recent decades, numerous countries have revised their public mental health care policies by establishing psychosocial care centers. This paper examines the employment consequences of introducing such centers in local communities. Focusing on Brazilian municipalities where psychosocial care centers were established to treat individuals with severe mental health disorders, I find an increase in the probability of working, particularly in the informal sector. The results are driven by women and individuals without physical or mental disabilities. In addition, I find that the presence of CAPS increases disability benefit receipt and that the effects on informal employment are concentrated among spouses, suggesting that these benefits may enable family members of patients to work outside the home.

Persistent disparities in educational attainment between Black and non-Black individuals remain a relevant concern. This paper examines the impact of federal university expansion on access to higher education by comparing younger and older cohorts and investigating differences across racial groups. While the expansion increased the probability of college attendance among non-Black individuals by 0.8 percentage points, we find no statistically significant effects among Black individuals. These effects are concentrated among individuals living in large municipalities and among those who remain in their municipality of birth. Our findings show that, despite expanding access to higher education, the expansion disproportionately benefited non-Black individuals, highlighting the challenges of race-neutral policies in reducing educational inequalities.

Over the past fifty years, countries worldwide have implemented mental health care reforms that involved the establishment of community mental health centers. These centers increase the demand for mental health professionals. Considering that the choice of a college major is influenced by market fluctuations, including changes in labor demand, this project investigates whether the expansion of the labor market in the mental health sector affects students’ decisions when selecting a college major. Specifically, I examine whether mental health–related college enrollment per young adult is higher in microregions with CAPS than in microregions without CAPS.

Education funds in Brazil comprise local revenue and intergovernmental transfers. This study analyzes the importance of budget structure on government spending in education by estimating the effects of two characteristics of the fiscal arrangement: (i) a minimum spending rule, and (ii) a set of intergovernmental transfers. The minimum spending rule has increased educational spending only for municipalities that were below the minimum; for those above the minimum, we find a negative effect of the rule. Whereas our results indicate that the minimum rule has increased investments in low-spending municipalities, it has not affected spending in personnel for high-spending ones. We then analyze whether the sources of funds matter to government spending by estimating the flypaper effect of intergovernmental transfers using an instrumental variable method. We find a significant flypaper effect for redistribution transfers. Interestingly, we do not find flypaper effect for other types of intergovernmental transfers.