I am a Ph.D. Student in Economics at the University of California, Santa Barbara. My research focuses on health economics and economics of education using applied econometrics.
Prior to joining UCSB, I worked at the Office of the Manager of the Social Sector at the Inter-American Development Bank in Washington D.C. where I conducted research on labor markets and economics of education. I was also the Data Center Coordinator at the School of Economics of the Universidad de los Andes in Bogotá, Colombia.
Ph.D. in Economics, In Progress
University of California, Santa Barbara
M.A. in Economics, 2021
University of California, Santa Barbara
M.A. in Economics, 2017
Universidad de los Andes
B.A. in Economics, 2015
Universidad de los Andes
This paper explores the impact of exposure to violence during the first nine years of life on risky health behaviors and socioemotional skills as a teenager. In Colombia, over 2 million children have experienced violence, but the medium-term consequences on risky health behaviors and socioemotional skills are not well understood. Using data from the Colombian Longitudinal Survey and administrative data at the municipality level, I leverage the within-municipality cross-cohort variation to study how exposure to terrorist attacks affects risky health behaviors and socioemotional skills. My findings suggest that exposure to terrorist attacks is associated with a 5.23% increase in the probability of drinking and a 5.1% increase in the total socioemotional difficulties experienced, driven by the hyperactivity scores (4.94%). These results shed light on the potential long-term consequences of violence on health and well-being, suggesting that the economic costs of violence are high.
In this document we analyze the impacts of a large-scale intervention that provided access to daycare centers for children in low-income neighborhoods in the city of Rio de Janeiro. Our results suggest that the intervention had a positive impact on enrollment rates and on the number of years children were enrolled to daycare during early childhood. We also find that winning the lottery had a positive effect on how regularly children attended primary school during the academic year. Because of the high attrition rates in the sample, we are unable to conclude whether the lottery had a positive impact on medium-term academic outcomes like standardized tests scores and overall grades.
TA: Winter 2022 - Spring 2023
TA: Fall 2022
TA: Fall 2021 - Spring 2022
TA: Fall 2020 - Spring 2021
TA: Summer 2017
TA: Spring 2015, 2017
TA: Fall 2015 - Fall 2016
TA: Spring 2015 - Fall 2016