Curriculum Vitae

PUBLICATIONS

Moved to Poverty? A Legacy of the Apartheid Experiment in South Africa (with Bladimir Carrillo and Carlos Charris) April 2022

American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, 2023

Presented at RIDGE-LACEA Inequality and Poverty (2022), 43º Meeting of the Brazilian Econometric Society (2021), RIDGE-Economic History (2021), LANE HOPE (2021), Applied Young Economist Webinar (2020), UNIFESSPA (2021), FGV-EPGE (2020), and UFPE (2020).

WORKING PAPERS

Routine-Biased Technological Change and Endogenous Skill Investments (with Danyelle Branco and Bladimir Carrillo) January 2024 

American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, Conditionally accepted

Abstract: We investigate how individuals alter their educational investments in response to routine-biased technology. We find that individuals growing up in robot-impacted areas are more likely to complete a bachelor’s degree and experience a relative increase in earnings. Changes in the skill premium and opportunity cost appear to drive these effects. To interpret these findings, we estimate a model of endogenous skill acquisition where changes in the demand and supply of skills shape the path of earnings. Counterfactual simulations suggest that endogenous human capital accumulation cannot undo most of the earnings effects of automation unless there are sufficiently generous educational subsidies.

Presented at RIDGE-LACEA Workshop on Labor (2022), 43º Meeting of the Brazilian Econometric Society (2021), NEUDC (2021), UFPE (2021), and Central Bank of Colombia (2021).

Minimum Wages and the Human Capital of the Next Generation (with Daniel Araújo, Bladimir Carrillo, and Breno Sampaio)

The Economic Journal, Revise and Resubmit

Abstract: An enormous literature estimates the effects of minimum wage policies on employment and wages as well as on earnings inequality. Yet whether such policies can affect the children of covered workers over the long run remains an open question. Previous studies tend to focus mainly on the contemporary impacts on individuals making high school dropout or college enrollment decisions, but retrospective exposure during critical periods of child development may be equally or even more important. In this paper, we study the long-run consequences of the unprecedented minimum wage expansion caused by the 1966 Fair Labor Standards Act Amendments. We exploit geographic variation in the baseline size of the population gaining below the new minimum wage floor just prior to the reform and the timing of policy adoption for identification. The results indicate that childhood exposure to the reform increased adult human capital and economic self-sufficiency. In an attempt to understand the mechanisms behind these effects, we find that the reform led to an immediate and persistent increase in parental income, especially for mothers and those at the bottom of the distribution. At the same time, we observe no meaningful changes in parental employment, fertility, or marital outcomes in the immediate aftermath of the reform. Taken in their entirety, these findings suggest that minimum wage policies could constitute an effective welfare tool to reduce inequality by improving the early life conditions of the poor.

Best Applied Microeconomics Papers Award, 43rd Brazilian Econometric Society (2021)

Presented at ASSA-AEA Annual Meeting (2022), 43º Meeting of the Brazilian Econometric Society (2021), and LACEA LAMES Annual Meeting (2021).

Expertise Overlap and Team Productivity: Evidence from the Hospital Industry (with Danyelle Branco, Bladimir Carrillo, and Di Fang) November 2023

Abstract: Many organizations use teamwork in the workplace. A longstanding question in economics is whether teams should consist of heterogeneous specialists or members with similar expertise. Diversity in specialized skills may generate productive complementarities, but it also may increase the costs of coordination and complicate teamwork. We study this question in the context of a common heart procedure with high mortality and significant spending, where doctors are assigned to teams in a quasi-random fashion. Using a clean research design and novel data from Brazil, we find that teams of doctors with shared expertise achieve lower patient mortality rates while using fewer medical inputs. These effects are larger when team members have less accumulated experience working together and perform more complex tasks, consistent with an improved coordination channel. These findings suggest that, at least in a high-pressure environment, the coordination costs of diversity in specialized skills are large enough to outweigh any beneficial complementarities. Counterfactual policy simulations suggest considerable efficiency gains from reallocating certain physicians across regular workdays.

Presented at NBER Annual Meeting (2023); ASSA-AEA Annual Meeting (2023); Accepted for presentation at the NBER (2023).

US-funded Counternarcotics Policy Effects on Colombia’s Rural Economy August 2022 

Abstract: Colombia is among the three largest coca leaf producers and the world's leading supplier of cocaine to the United States (UNODC, 2009). The United States and Colombia have aggressively pursued forced coca eradication and introduced an anti-drug policy named Plan Colombia to combat cocaine production. This research examines the effects of the strategies for controlling the cocaine supply in Colombia on the value of lawful agricultural output. For this purpose, the study exploits the main changes in the policy used by the Colombian government to reduce cocaine supply as an exogenous variation in coca cultivation to the value of legal agricultural production. The empirical strategy follows a (triple) difference-in-differences estimator by assessing whether changes in the bilateral policy strategy to reduce coca cultivation and cocaine supply affect the value of the agricultural output disproportionately in coca-growing areas. The results indicate an increase in the legal agricultural GDP due mainly to the interdiction of cocaine and cocaine-processing facilities policy in Colombia since 2007. Coca-growing areas of Colombia saw substantial drops in coca cultivation from 2007 to 2013 and benefited from such policy compared to agriculture in non-coca-growing regions. The results also indicate that the value of agricultural production in the coca-growing areas gained a monetary benefit from the cocaine labs' dismantling policy of about US$284.2 million. These estimates can be considered the first linking the value of agricultural products to the effect of policies at curbing coca cultivation and cocaine supply. Based on the findings, efforts to reduce coca cultivation should emphasize anti-drug strategies on production stages and trafficking with the highest value-added. This empirical evidence is crucial for strengthening legal agriculture, at least in terms of the value of agricultural production.

Presented at the AAEA Annual Meeting (2022) and WAEA Annual Meeting (2022).

SELECTED WORK IN PROGRESS

The Renewable Fuel Standard Shock to the US Great Plains Farm Economy (with Lilyan Fulginiti and Richard Perrin),

Presented at the 31st ICAE (2021) and AAEA & WAEA Joint Annual Meeting (2021).

The Economic Burden of Violence on Productivity: Evidence from Colombian Armed Conflict (with Lilyan Fulginiti and Richard Perrin),

Presented at NAPW-ISEAPA (2021), AAEA Annual Meeting (2020), and WAEA Annual Meeting (2020).

SOME PUBLICATIONS OF RESEARCH BEFORE DOCTORAL STUDIES 

Poverty and Inequality within Brazilian Households: an application of a collective consumption model (with Alexandre Coelho),

 Empirical Economics, 2020 

Attainments and Limitations of an Early Childhood Programme in Colombia (with Juan Trujillo and Bladimir Carrillo),

 Health Policy and Planning, 2014

Relationship between Professional Antenatal Care and Facility Delivery: an Assessment of Colombia (with Juan Trujillo and Bladimir Carrillo),

 Health Policy and Planning, 2014