Publications
Shooting a Moving Target: Evaluating Targeting Tools for Social Programs When Income Fluctuates
Journal of Development Economics, Volume 172, January 2025, 103395
A key challenge for policymakers in low- and middle-income countries is to design a method to select beneficiaries of social programs when income is unobservable and volatile. We use a unique panel dataset of a random sample of households in Colombia's social registry that contains information before, during, and after the 2020 economic crisis to evaluate a traditional static proxy-means test (PMT) and three policy-relevant alternatives.
Journal link PDF Online AppendixBuying a Blind Eye: Campaign Donations, Regulatory Enforcement, and Deforestation
American Political Science Review, 2024, 118(2), 635-653.
[Originally Master's Thesis] While existing work has demonstrated that campaign donations can buy access to benefits such as favorable legislation and preferential contracting, we highlight another use of campaign contributions: buying reductions in regulatory enforcement. Specifically, we argue that in return for campaign contributions, Colombian mayors who rely on donor-funding (compared with those who do not) choose not to enforce sanctions against illegal deforestation activities.
Working Papers
Social Protection, Short-term Debt, and Access to Credit
R&R - American Economic Journal: Applied Economics.
We exploit an expansion in social protection to middle-income households to study how they cope with economic shocks and how to build their resilience. We use a re- gression discontinuity design around the eligibility cutoff for a program that delivered monthly cash transfers mainly through bank accounts in Colombia. We find no impacts on food security, education, and health outcomes—the target outcomes of antipoverty programs. In contrast, program eligibility increases non-food consumption and reduces debt for routine expenses.
WP PDF