Work in Progress
The human capital effects of a neighborhood-level reduction in violence: Evidence from Rio’s favelas [paper]
This paper studies the effects of reducing lethal violence at the neighborhood level for several years on short-run learning gains, employment, and incarceration for treated individuals in their early adulthood. I exploit the staggered introduction of a place-based policy that decreased lethal violence and, in particular, police killings for up to four years. I show that the program increases human capital for students in the short run and that younger individuals, more exposed to the treatment, have a substantially lower likelihood of being incarcerated in early adulthood. The results suggest no simple linear relationship between test score gains and medium-run results. On the one hand, the subgroup of white boys shows the most considerable improvement in test scores, but the learning gains do not translate into better formal employment prospects in the future. Conversely, boys (white and non-white) display a more significant improvement in learning in the short run and a sizeable reduction in the likelihood of incarceration later in their lives. Taken together, the evidence on medium-run mechanisms is consistent with these effects being caused by changes in cognitive function associated with a less violent childhood and by a change in drug-related career opportunities for young men in favelas. However, data constraints limit my ability to differentiate between these outcomes.
Presentations: 44th SBE Meeting, PIMES-UFPE, Summer School on The Economics Crime over Time and Space,16th CIREQ PhD Conference, 1st Insper Workshop on Recent Developments in the Economics of Crime in Brazil, IEPS, UBC Dev Lunch
We use monthly clinic-level panel data from 204 clinics in Rio de Janeiro between January 2009 and December 2016 to study the effects of violent events on healthcare access, utilization, and quality. Exploiting the proximity of clinics to geocoded episodes of violence related to police operations and drug gang battles, we find that exposure to violence leads to a significant reduction in healthcare utilization. Specifically, each additional police-related shooting is associated with a 12.3% reduction in primary care procedures, primarily driven by decreased access on the day of the event. These effects are more pronounced in neighborhoods with lower average income and socioeconomic status. We provide evidence that while violent events reduce healthcare utilization, they do not significantly impact quality indicators such as employee turnover or hospitalization. Thus, urban violence not only hampers access to health services but also exacerbates inequality in healthcare utilization in affected neighborhoods.
Temperature shocks display a U-shaped relationship with mortality, and the link is primarily via human physiology. Most of this evidence comes from cross-city and epidemiological studies in developed countries. This paper examines the heat-mortality relationship at a fine-grained level within Rio de Janeiro. We rely on novel satellite imagery sources on temperature and administrative health records at the individual level to build a neighborhood-by-month panel over 14 years. Heat stress increases all-cause mortality in individuals aged 60 years old or more, but does not affect other age groups. In particular, we find that hot days in a typical month in Rio account for 2\% of cardiovascular deaths in the population 60+. Access to preventive health care can attenuate the marginal effect of temperature on these deaths. We conclude that temperature shocks are localized within cities, implying that remedial policies should also be localized.
Presentations: 41st SBE, Global Open Series in Environmental Economics (2020), II SemináRio - RioMais (2020), CIREQ (2021)
Ongoing Research
Urban violence and pacification in Rio’s favelas: innovative approaches to measuring conflict and quantifying health system impacts (joint with Thomas Hone, Christopher Millet, Joana Monteiro, Beatriz Rache and Rudi Rocha)
Spatial and Temporal Distribution of Criminal Organizations in Brazil (joint with Mariana Carvalho and Pedro Pessoa)
Criminal Organizations and Juvenile Deliquency in Rio de Janeiro (joint with Julia Guerra)
Criminal Organizations and voting behavior (joint with Thiago Sussekind)
Association Between Neighborhood Safety and Chronic Conditions Among Older Adults (joint with Brayan Seixas)
Novel Approaches to Estimating Mobility and Intergenerational Transmission of Well-Being in Brazil (joint with Beatriz Rache) [proposal]
Effects of extending primary healthcare hours on health facilities organization and healthcare (joint with Helena Arruda, Lucas Falcao, Rudi Rocha and Leonardo Rosa)
Crime Prevention through Urban Requalification and Municipal Police Presence (joint with Julia Guerra and Joana Monteiro)
Dormant
Policy Research
The Impacts of UPP on Violence. Working paper. 2023.
The Evolution of Thinking about the State in Peter Evans's View – a theoretical approach. Brazilian Journal of Political Economy 42 (2022): 638-663. Portuguese version.
Capítulo 8 - Segurança Pública (joint with Daniel Cerqueira) in MELLO, Eduardo Bandeira de; VIEIRA, Andrea Gouvea; BARBOZA, Ricardo de Menezes (org.). Maravilhosa para todos: políticas públicas para o Rio de Janeiro. 1. ed. São Paulo: Editora Lux, 2020.
Capítulo 2 - Saúde (joint with Diogo Lucena, André Medici and Marina Aguiar Palma) in MELLO, Eduardo Bandeira de; VIEIRA, Andrea Gouvea; BARBOZA, Ricardo de Menezes (org.). Maravilhosa para todos: políticas públicas para o Rio de Janeiro. 1. ed. São Paulo: Editora Lux, 2020.
Origens Históricas da Desigualdade e Futuro pós-Covid in MATHIAS, João Felippe Cury M.; SARAIVA, Luiz Fernando (org.). Igual-Desigual: História e Economia das Desigualdades antes, durante e após a Pandemia. 1 ed. São Paulo: HUCITEC Editora, 2020.
Avaliação de impacto do uso do Cartão BNDES sobre o emprego nas empregas de menor porte (joint with Luciano Machado and Maria Araujo Parreiras). Revista BNDES ed.36, 2011.
Capítulo - Conclusões in Prochnik, V. (org.) ”La inserción de América Latina en las Cadenas Globales de Valor”. 2010