Research

Work in Progress

Water In-Kind transfer: Evidence from Colombia

This study evaluates the effects of Mínimo Vital, an in-kind transfer implemented in Bogotá (Colombia) in 2012 that provided disadvantaged households with a free allowance of 6 cubic meters of water per month. In Colombia, urban housings are classified into socioeconomic strata on an ascending scale ranging from 1 to 6. Mínimo Vital was applied to strata 1 and 2 only, which allows one to provide quasi-experimental evidence on its effects. In particular, I combine a difference in differences identification strategy with entropy balancing, a method that allows one to estimate weights that perfectly balance observable characteristics across treated and control households. I estimate the causal effect of Mínimo Vital on the probability of consuming more than 1.5 m3 per person per month (intermediate access to water according to World Health Organization), water consumption and water bill, the probability of water reutilization, rainwater collection and the prevalence of diarrhea in early childhood. As a result of the policy, I find that the probability to consume more than 1.5 m3 per person per month increases by 15.7 pp, water consumption increases by 2.55 m3 and water bill decreases about a 10%. I also find an increase of 9.7 pp in the probability of water reutilization, and no effect on the probability of rainwater collection. Analysis by wealth index quartile suggests that the impacts of the policy are stronger for poorer households. Importantly, I also find that the prevalence of diarrhea among young children in the poorest households was significantly reduced by the policy.

Obesity: the Role of Genetic and Enviromental Inequalities

*joint with Anna Sanz de Galdeano

It is widely accepted among social scientists that both nature and nurture determine individuals’ future health and socioeconomic outcomes. From the empirical perspective, however, disentangling the role played by nature and nurture (as well as their potential interactions) is not straightforward. We take advantage of recent advances in molecular biology to study how individuals’ genetic propensity to obesity (as measured by BMI polygenic scores derived from genome-wide association studies) as well as different measures of their environment determine their obesity status at an elderly age in the United States. In particular, we consider two environmental measures: individuals’ socioeconomic status during childhood, and the cohort they belong to (as the time trend in obesity in the US displays important changes in the obesogenic environment), neither of which can be possibly affected by their obesity status later on in life. Since individual genetic heterogeneity associated with adiposity may as well influence behavioral responses to environmental differences, we also study whether and how such differences exacerbate or mitigate the effects of individuals’ genetic inheritance.