PhD Candidate in Economics

Graduate Research Associate,  Center for Policy Research

Research in progress:

"Civil Wars Beyond their Borders: The Human Capital and Health Consequences of Hosting Refugees" (job market paper)

Abstract

Between 1993 and 1994, extremist militia groups carried out the extermination of ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutus in the genocides of Burundi and Rwanda. Nearly one million people were killed and thousands were forcibly uprooted from their homes. Over the course of a few months, Kagera –a region in northwestern Tanzania– received more than 500,000 refugees from these wars. This region is home to a series of geographic natural barriers, which resulted in exogenous variation in refugee intensity. I exploit this variation to investigate the short and long run causal effects of hosting refugees on the outcomes of local children. Reduced‐form estimates offer evidence of adverse impacts almost 1.5 years after the shock: a worsening of children’s anthropometrics of 0.3 standard deviations, an increase of 15 to 20 percentage points in the incidence of infectious diseases and an increase of roughly 7 percentage points in mortality for children under five. I also exploit intra‐ and inter‐cohort variation and find that childhood exposure to this massive arrival of refugees reduced height in early adulthood by 1.8 cm (1.2%), schooling by 0.2 years (7.1%) and literacy by 7 percentage points (8.6%). Designs using the distance from the village to the border with Rwanda as an alternative instrumental strategy for refugee intensity support the findings. The estimates are robust across a variety of samples, specifications and estimation methods and provide evidence of a previously undocumented indirect effect of civil wars on the well‐being of children and subsequent economic growth in refugee‐hosting communities.

"Precautionary Responses to Adult Mortality: Are Children Affected Even Before Their Parents Die?" (with Indhira Santos)

"The Intergenerational Effects of Maternal Schooling on Childhood Health: Evidence from a Large-Scale Education Program in Nigeria"

"Twins, Birthweight and Development at Early Ages: The Case of the Developing World"  

Submitted:

"Children’s Vulnerability to Weather Shocks: A Natural Disaster as a Natural Experiment" (with Indhira Santos), resubmission invited by the Journal of Development Economics  (download)

Published:

"Income Volatility, Risk-Coping Behavior and Consumption Smoothing Mechanisms in Developing Countries: A Survey", Desarrollo y Sociedad, 58 (2), pp. 1-48, 2006, Universidad de los Andes, Bogota, Colombia [Refereed Journal])  (download)

"Understanding the Youth in Colombia: From the Socioeconomic Determinants of College Enrollment to the Design of Student Loans",  Economia y Region, Vol. 1, No.2, November, 2004, Cartagena, Colombia (download)

"Employment Inequalities in the Nineties: Who Are More Vulnerable and Why?", Coyuntura Social, Fedesarrollo, No. 25, Bogota, November, 2001 [Refereed Journal]

Working Papers:

"Does More Mean Better? Sibling Sex Composition and the Link between Family Size and Children’s Quality", submitted (download)

"Is What You Earn What You Get? Exploring Elder’s Altruistic Behavior in Mexico", (with K. Breceda, I. Santos and R. Abreu-Lastra), draft, Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, May, 2004   (download)

Industrial Development and Managerial Culture in Cartagena: Andian National Corporation and the Mamonal Refinery, 1920-2000, (with Maria Teresa Ripoll), Universidad Jorge Tadeo Lozano, Cartagena, December, 2001

"Regional Tourism in the Nineties: The case of Barranquilla, Cartagena and Santa Marta", Universidad Jorge Tadeo Lozano, Research Department, Cartagena, October, 2000