In recent decades, numerous countries have revised their public mental health care policies by creating community mental health centers. This paper studies the consequences of such establishments on the labor market. Using the introduction of community mental health centers in small Brazilian municipalities, I find that people residing in a small municipality where a community mental health center is established experience a higher likelihood of work; more specifically, they join the informal sector and leave the formal sector.

The expansion of higher education represents an opportunity for improving college access among young adults. Using individual-level data from the 2010 Brazilian Demographic Census and institutional data from the Annual Higher Education Census, we estimate the impact of public college vacancy openings between 2009 and 2010 on lifetime college enrollment. Our results show that individuals aged 18-20 living in microregions that experienced public college expansion were significantly more likely to have ever enrolled in higher education compared to individuals aged 28-30. When we disaggregate the results by race, we find that both Black and non-Black young adults experienced statistically similar enrollment gains in level, despite different baseline enrollment rates. Furthermore, when we account for Affirmative Action policies implemented during this period, we find that the combination of expansion and targeted admissions policies further increased enrollment for both Black and non-Black individuals. Overall, our findings suggest that public college expansion, especially when paired with Affirmative Action, enhances college access for all young adults and can contributes to reducing racial gaps in higher education enrollment.

This paper studies the farm's characteristics influencing the Wisconsin dairy farmers' market exit. Using the initial conditions provided to the 2003 Dairy Farm Survey and the 2016 licensed milk producers list, we find that farms with older farmers, smaller capacity, less milk productivity, and less dairy dependence are more willing to exit the market. Meanwhile, we find these exit determinants, except for the farmer's age, are not good predictors for planning to exit. The evidence suggests that the dairy farm exit is hard to predict from the expected exit, and farm exit seems driven by outside factors rather than individual characteristics.

Este projeto investiga se a expansão de centros comunitários de saúde mental influencia a escolha do curso de graduação. Parte-se da hipótese de que a presença de Centros de Atenção Psicossocial (CAPS) amplia a demanda local por profissionais de saúde mental, afetando as decisões educacionais dos estudantes. Analisa-se se indivíduos que concluíram o ensino médio em municípios ou microrregiões com CAPS apresentam maior probabilidade de se matricular em cursos relacionados à saúde mental do que aqueles de localidades sem esses centros. A análise utiliza dados do Censo do Ensino Superior e do Censo da Educação Básica, abrangendo o período de 1995 a 2024. Espera-se identificar maior probabilidade e maior taxa de matrículas em cursos da área de saúde mental em regiões com 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.