Research
Working Papers
Partisanship, Electoral Competition, and Candidate Selection - Draft coming very soon
Job Market Paper
Abstract (click to expand)
Electoral Cycles in Female Sterilization - Under Review
With Simeon Nichter
Abstract (click to expand)
Many women across the world face substantial challenges in obtaining access to family planning — an important problem emphasized by the Sustainable Development Goals. The present study explores electoral cycles in female sterilization, the most prevalent contraceptive method in the world. We focus on Brazil, a country where many women have unmet demands for sterilization and often queue for many months or even years for their surgeries. Qualitative evidence suggests that local politicians manipulate the provision of publicly funded tubal ligation surgeries for political purposes. We analyze the universe of tubal ligation surgeries performed by the public health system, using regression analysis to examine variation across Brazilian municipalities in 1998-2019. We find that female sterilizations increase 8.8% during municipal election years. Moreover, they surge during electoral campaigns: female sterilizations increase 30.5% in the three months before municipal elections. Findings are similar when adjusting for overall hospitalizations, which rise less than 1% during municipal elections. Female sterilizations have more pronounced electoral cycles than do other elective surgeries (including vasectomies), and no cycles are detected for emergency surgeries. Electoral cycles in female sterilization are concentrated among nonwhite Brazilians, who face substantial health disparities. Female sterilizations increase far more during municipal than national elections, and they spike especially in poor municipalities and in the Northeast region. More broadly, our findings suggest that Brazilian politicians distort the public provision of contraception, a crucial problem not least because family planning is widely deemed a basic human right.Improving Access to Justice for Victims of Intimate Partner Violence: Specialized Domestic Violence Courts in Puerto Rico
With Carolina Arteaga, Gustavo Bobonis, and Paola Salardi.
Abstract(click to expand)
We study the large-scale implementation of a system of specialized domestic violence courts (SDVCs), an innovation in access to justice programs for potential victims of intimate partner violence (IPV) and offenders. Using individual-level administrative data from the universe of civil domestic violence cases in Puerto Rico during the period 2014-2021, we leverage the staggered opening of SDVCs across judicial regions to examine the consequences for victims' judicial protection as well as offender recidivism. Access to SDVCs leads to a considerable 8 percentage points increase in the probability that judges issue a protection order and a 1.7 percentage point (15 percent) decrease in victim and offender reappearance rates within one year of the start of the case. Effects are more pronounced for cases in which parties have children in common and in which access to SDVCs is more limited. Linking the case data to administrative and survey data on judges, we show that the priorities of judges assigned to SDVCs play a prominent role in explaining these outcomes.Published Non-Refereed Work
Local Manufacturing in a Conflict Zone: Lessons from the White Helmets’ PPE Project (Reach Alliance, 2022)
With Carolina Canepari, Isabel Davis, Kristyn Lee, and Stanley Zlotkin
Executive Summary (click to expand)
While the world has become increasingly globalized, humanitarian aid delivery has rapidly transitioned toward localization in the past decade. Actively partnering with and funding local actors has the potential to greatly increase humanitarian systems’ effectiveness. Local actors have greater access to and better understanding of culture and needs, making them invaluable assets in aid delivery. Encouraging local humanitarian interventions can also make aid more equitable by actively investing in capacity building. We investigate the use of local manufacturing in a humanitarian response by evaluating the White Helmets’ efforts to manufacture personal protective equipment (PPE) in Northwest Syria during the COVID-19 pandemic. This initiative was born out of necessity — ongoing civil war, bureaucratic challenges, and international PPE shortages all contributed to difficulties in supplying the region through traditional humanitarian aid channels. Years of armed conflict and a decimated healthcare system had left the area exposed to potentially catastrophic coronavirus outbreaks. To help mitigate this risk, the White Helmets took it upon themselves to locally manufacture 8 million masks, 150,000 face shields, and 50,000 gowns for use by healthcare workers. We examine how the White Helmets’ local manufacturing project enabled them to better identify needs and respond rapidly to them. By leveraging and building on local trust, the organization was able to deliver a successful humanitarian response. Beyond addressing short-term needs, the project also contributes to sustainable development in a conflict zone by offering employment opportunities and improving local capacity.#AUEU: A Twitter Analysis of the AU-EU Summit 2017 (African Policy Circle, 2018)
With Alexander Gaus