Working Papers
Working Papers
Optimal Subsidies in Capacity-Constrained Essential Services
Policymakers often provide essential goods such as education, healthcare, and childcare for free to make them more accessible. Yet setting prices at zero can push demand beyond public capacity, so some consumers end up rationed out and must either turn to private providers or go without these services. We study this trade-off in the Brazilian higher education market, where private institutions compete with high-quality, free, and capacity-constrained public colleges. Using a structural supply and demand model, we show that free college reduces overall enrollment and lowers enrollment among poor students once its effects on admission cutoffs are taken into account, despite substantial and well-targeted affirmative action quotas. Simulations indicate that the budget-neutral mix of subsidies that maximizes higher education enrollment sets public tuition at BRL 100—approximately the average per capita income of students in the lowest socioeconomic quintile—and provides an unconditional BRL 22.73 scholarship. Under this policy, students attending public schools pay BRL 77.27 and students attending private schools receive BRL 22.73 (in addition to paying private tuition). This reform would increase total enrollment by 1.1%, narrow the enrollment gap between the poor and non-poor students by 0.8 p.p., and raise consumer surplus by 0.4% of baseline prices, even though average market prices rise by 9.8%.
Publications
Estimating the Economic Impacts of Power Supply Interruptions
Energy Economics, 80, 2019, 983-994
The cost of power system rationing, which is a crucial parameter for determining optimal resilience investments, is usually estimated using reduced-form linear models or ordinary input-output analysis. However, such methods do not properly address either consumers' rational reactions to rationing policy or policy design nonlinearities. To solve this problem, this paper estimates the effects of power system rationing using a general equilibrium model. The model solution shows that the power cut distribution among industries is a critical variable for quantifying policy effects and provides insights into optimal policy design.
Saving more than R$ 85 billion of Brazilian Social Security System: The case of PRBI (with Raquel Freitas and Alberto Beltrame)
Brazilian Journal of Public Administration: Practical Perspectives Forum, 54 (6), 2020, 1729-1746
Since 2016, the number of recipients of incapacity allowance in Brazil has been continuously falling. This article presents the program of incapacity benefits assessment (PRBI) to help understand the dynamics around incapacity allowance and similar benefits. The study shows that the PRBI can save more than R$ 85 billion of the budget allocated to social security in the country.
Lightly/Not Peer Reviewed Publications
Três desafios em avaliação e monitoramento da inclusão produtiva
Revista Brasileira de Avaliação, 12(2), 2023.
Financiamento Estudantil no Brasil: Como Definir Sustentabilidade? (with Samuel Pessoa)
Radar: tecnologia, produção e comércio exterior (IPEA), n. 46, 2016, 47-54.
Books
Caminhos do Desenvolvimento: Estabilizar, Crescer, Incluir (coordinated with Marcos Mendes and Fernando Veloso)
Book Chapters
O Cadastro Único para Programas Sociais do Governo Federal: Presente e Futuro
in: Políticas públicas bem-sucedidas: lições para promover o bem comum (coordination: Marcos Mendes)
Policy Papers
Diagnóstico dos Programas de Transferência de Renda no Brasil (with Fernando Veloso)
Texto para Discussão do IEPE/CdG, 2026.
Fin - Confederação Nacional das Instituições Financeiras, 2026.
Fin - Confederação Nacional das Instituições Financeiras, 2025.
Perspectiva para os Programas de Transferência de Renda em 2021
FGV/IBRE, 2020.
Programa de Responsabilidade Social: Diagnóstico e Proposta (with Fernando Veloso, Marcos Mendes, Anaely Machado, and Ana Berçot)
CDPP, 2020.
Uma agenda econômica pós-pandemia: parte 1 – qualidade do gasto público e tributação (coordinated by Marcos Lisboa, with Marcos Mendes, Laura Machado, and Ricardo Paes de Barros)
Insper, 2020.
Estudo da Linha de Base da Avaliação do Programa Criança Feliz (with Iná Santos, Tiago Munhoz, Raquel Barcelos, Cauane Blumenberg, Caroline Bortolotto, Alicia Matijasevich, Hernante dos Santos, Letícia Marques, Luciano Correia, Marta Rovery, Pedro de Lira, Vitor Pereira, Ronaldo Souza, Marina Chicaro, Cesar Victora)
Caderno de Estudos SAGI, v. 35, 2020
United Nations Expert Group Meeting: Addressing Inequalities and Challenges to Social Inclusion, 2018.
Resting Papers
The Insurance Role of Public Employment (with Anna dos Reis and Eduardo Zilberman)
A public job can be a source of insurance against income risk. Indeed, many public employees have job stability, which is compounded with less volatile and more compressed wages. Hence, by increasing its number of employees, the government improves the degree of insurance in the economy. In order to quantify this source of insurance, we introduce public employment in an incomplete markets model. In a model economy calibrated to Brazil, if the share of public workers reduces from 13.5 to 10 percent, social welfare increases but losses due to the worse degree of insurance are of 1 to 2 percent.