Welcome

I’m a Ph.D. candidate in Political Science at the University of California, San Diego, where I study how politics shapes the distribution of public goods in unequal democracies. My research centers on the political economy of development, focusing on local politics, urban policy, and the governance of essential services such as healthcare, transportation, and housing. I combine quantitative methods with field-based insights to examine when and why elected officials use local policies as instruments of political strategy. Outside academia, I’ve worked with NGOs, governments, and international organizations on initiatives addressing health, mobility, housing, and urban inequality across Latin America.

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Working Papers

Housing, Social Cohesion, and Mental Health: Experimental Evidence from Brazilian Slums.

With Natalia Bueno, Daniel Da Mata, Ciro Biderman, and George Avelino

How do housing interventions affect subjective well-being? To study this question, we conducted a randomized intervention in informal settlements in Brazil that mobilized residents to build higher-quality prefabricated houses with community members and friends. We find that the intervention substantially improved subjective well-being. Assessing the mechanisms, we show that treated individuals have more trust in community members and a lower propensity to move out to other neighborhoods. Qualitative data from semistructured in-depth interviews reinforce our findings. The results highlight that social interactions are relevant for explaining outcomes of in situ improvements.

It is not (just) the economy, stupid: Policy Innovation and Retrospective Voting in São Paulo, Brazil.

With Ciro Biderman, and George Avelino, and João V. Guedes-Neto .

This paper examines whether innovative public policy at the local level can generate retrospective electoral rewards. We study the Bilhete Único—a smart-card fare integration system implemented in São Paulo that significantly reduced commuting costs and time for millions of working-class residents. Leveraging georeferenced data on voting and transportation use across sub-municipal zones, we employ a difference-in-differences design to compare changes in the incumbent mayor’s vote share between 2000 and 2004 across areas with varying exposure to the policy. We find that zones with more direct beneficiaries of the smart card saw significantly higher support for the incumbent, even after accounting for socioeconomic factors and other municipal programs. Our findings demonstrate that targeted, technocratic innovations can produce measurable electoral returns when policy impacts are visible, personalized, and geographically concentrated. This study expands the scope of retrospective accountability beyond national economic indicators to include distributive, technical urban policy in the Global South.

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Work in Progress

Why Universal Isn’t Equal: Political Favoritism in Brazil’s Public Health System.

Chapter One - Ph.D. Dissertation.

This paper examines how political favoritism persists within Brazil’s universal healthcare system. Using administrative data on hospitalizations and a regression discontinuity design, I show that candidates for city council who are politically aligned with the mayor are significantly more likely to be hospitalized during the mayor’s term — a sign of discretionary access to care. Despite the universal and rights-based nature of Brazil’s public health system (SUS), access to essential services like hospital beds remains shaped by local political dynamics. The findings reveal how political connections can persist even in formally egalitarian systems, raising broader questions about equity, accountability, and the functioning of universal welfare programs in unequal democracies.

Hierarchies of Power: Political Alignment and Unequal Access to Health Services in Brazil

Chapter Two - Ph.D. Dissertation.

This paper examines how inter-municipal political hierarchies shape access to public healthcare in Brazil. Building on insights from agglomeration economy models, I argue that more urbanized municipalities — which concentrate healthcare infrastructure and higher complexity treatment facilities — hold a comparative advantage within their health districts. Mayors of these urban centers can use their control over scarce resources to build political support in neighboring peripheral towns. Leveraging variation in political alignment between municipalities within the same health region, I show that peripheral towns governed by aligned mayors receive preferential access to health services. These findings reveal how political coordination across municipalities mediates access to essential care, challenging assumptions that decentralized health systems function according to epidemiological need. The paper contributes to broader debates on clientelism, regional inequality, and the political economy of public service provision.

Race and Substantive Representation: Evidence from Brazil.

With Scott Desposato, and Andrew Janusz

Does the descriptive representation of marginalized racial groups deliver substantive representation? Some scholars and activists contend that the election of members of marginalized racial groups contribute to the substantive representation of those groups, yet others note that descriptive representation is neither necessary nor sufficient to achieve substantive representation. In this paper, we contribute to the literature on political representation by assessing the link between descriptive and substantive representation in Brazil, a racially diverse and unequal democracy. We employ a regression discontinuity design and leverage variation in close elections to estimate the causal effect of electing an Afro-Brazilian mayor on policy inputs and outcomes. While we find suggestive evidence of spending and outcome differences between white and nonwhite mayors, after accounting for multiple hypothesis testing we fail to reject the null hypothesis that the race of mayors has no impact on substantive representation.

Violent Legacies of Dictatorship in Brazil.

With Mariana Carvalho, and Tiago Ventura.

Why do some democracies experience persistently high levels of violence decades after authoritarian rule? This paper investigates the long-term effects of Brazil’s military dictatorship on local violence by analyzing municipalities designated as National Security Areas (NSAs), where mayoral elections were abolished during the regime. Using a matched-sample design that combines geographic proximity and pre-treatment covariates, we show that NSA municipalities experienced significantly higher rates of violent deaths during the democratic period (1996–2015), averaging five additional deaths per 100,000 inhabitants annually compared to similar municipalities. We explore three mechanisms to explain this legacy: (1) increased inequality due to authoritarian governance and weak redistribution in the democratic period, (2) disrupted political networks that led to fragmented electoral competition, and (3) institutional persistence of a repressive security apparatus. The evidence strongly supports the first mechanism, with suggestive but inconclusive results for the latter two. This study contributes to the literature on democratic consolidation and authoritarian legacies by identifying how localized autocratic interventions can have enduring and violent consequences for democratic governance.

Policy

Covid-19: Challenges and Resilience in the Favelas.

This policy report comes from a three-year field experiment in partnership with TECHO, evaluating the effects of emergency housing on COVID-19 distancing measures, mental well-being, and civic engagement in over 600 families across six Brazilian states.

Media: SP2 Globo, Uol, Poder 360.

Demand-Responsive Transit: A Global Review

WRI Working Paper, co-authored with WRI Mexico, this report catalogs 150+ on-demand transit systems and proposes a typology for emerging mobility models.

Paulista Aberta: Evaluating Urban Interventions

Study on São Paulo’s Sunday car-free initiative on Paulista Avenue, analyzing its effects on mobility, pollution, and commerce using survey and synthetic control methods.

Transit Safety Zones in São Paulo

Developed a methodology for “Transit Safety Areas” with Bloomberg Philanthropies and São Paulo’s government to reduce pedestrian fatalities.

Jardim Lapena Neighborhood Plan

Participatory urban plan created with residents of a peripheral São Paulo neighborhood, focused on infrastructure and citizen engagement.

Public Transportation Reform in São José dos Campos

Consulted for the city on redesigning its public transportation system through financial feasibility studies and auction planning.

The Impact of Brazil’s Electricity Matrix on Emissions

Analysis of how electricity generation scenarios affect emissions, jobs, and GDP in Brazil, conducted with Instituto Escolhas.