Research

Abstract: Recognizing victims' rights to receive justice while transitioning to peace, the Colombian government enacted in 2011 Law 1448 (Victims' Law), a landmark decision that established a series of reparation processes for the victims of the country's long internal armed conflict. In this paper, I focus specifically on land restitution, which seeks to restore property rights for victims who had to abandon their land or were subject to dispossession. Using the timing of the policy implementation in a difference-in-differences strategy and detailed electronic health records, I explore first the spillover effects of the restitution process on mental health conditions at the municipality level. I show that the restoration of property rights is associated with a reduction in overall mental health conditions equivalent to 18 cases per 10,000 people. A decrease in conflict, more productive investment, and coverage of the health system suggest that the interventions to secure property rights boost the trust and expectations of citizens during times of war. In a second exercise using microdata on the direct restitution beneficiaries and exploiting the timing of when they got their land back, I find that those who have been exposed to the restitution are more likely to have health insurance, less likely to be renters and have a higher probability of owning real estate. Taken together, these findings are consistent with an improvement in victims' mental health status to the extent that the process of non-monetary reparations amplifies institutional presence, reduces poverty levels and offers a safer local environment to enjoy the restored property rights.

Abstract: We study how the societal disruptions of the COVID-19 pandemic impacted diagnosis of a prevalent childhood mental health condition, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Using both nationwide private health insurance claims and a single state’s comprehensive electronic health records, we compare children exposed to the pandemic to same-aged children prior to the pandemic. We find the pandemic reduced new ADHD diagnoses by 8.6 percent among boys and 11.0 percent among girls nationwide through February 2021. We further show that higher levels of in-person schooling in fall 2020 dampened the decline for girls but had no moderating effect for boys.

Abstract: This paper reports the results of an experiment designed to improve access to prenatal care of pregnant women in a low-resource setting. A simple intervention of timely reminders delivered in person by community health care workers was found to increase prenatal doctor visits by 3.4-7.8 percentage points. The effect was larger for women with riskier pregnancies.

Abstract: Schools enhance the lives of families in various ways, and one potential consequence of their closures is worsened parental well-being. We study the effects of COVID-19 pandemic school closures on parental mental health by measuring consumption of products that are often used to cope with increased stress and depression. Using a cohort based difference in difference (DID) design and commercial claims data, we find an increase in maternal anti-depressant use by 1.5%, in zip codes with above median school closures; there are no statistically significant effects for paternal antidepressant use, and we are able to rule out fairly small values. Some parents may "self-medicate" as a coping mechanism rather than seek formal medical care. Using a county based DID design and retail scanner data, we find alcohol sales increased by 2% in counties with above median school closures. Both anti-depressant prescriptions and alcohol sales returned to base line levels as in-person schooling resumed. We explore whether the burdens of school closures were disparately concentrated in minoritized communities, and find that anti-depressant and alcohol use increases were concentrated in zip codes with above median Black and Asian populations, but not in zip codes with a predominantly White or Hispanic population. Overall, these results suggest that the school system plays an important role in maintaining population mental well-being outcomes and in helping families cope with stress.

Abstract: The electronic logging device (ELD) final rule was passed in 2015 and implemented in phases over the course of four years. The mandate required that most commercial motor vehicles be fitted with an ELD by December 2019. The primary purpose of the transportation safety policy is to better enforce existing hours-of-service (HOS) regulations. HOS rules seek to limit the amount of driving time commercial drivers are on the road each day to avoid fatigued driving that may cause accidents and fatalities. Prior to the ELD mandate, commercial long-haul drivers cited that they regularly violated daily and weekly HOS rules when paper driving logs could be easily manipulated (Chen et al., 2021; Hege et al., 2015). Using data from the Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS) on traffic fatalities, we run two sets of difference-in-differences analyses exploiting the introduction of the ELD mandate: one predicting the change of truck accidents, fatalities, and injuries and one showing the possible aggressive driving mechanisms (e.g., speeding, drunk driving) behind the main effects. Our first model finds that the ELD mandate led to an increase in truck accidents by 8.8%, an increase in truck fatalities by 11.4% and an increase in the number of passengers with severe injuries experiences by 11.6%. Our second model finds that crashes with aggressive driving behaviors by truck drivers increased by 16% in the post period, supporting the first model's results. Additionally, and as placebo exercises, we find no change in the average fatality and injury rates once we modify the timing of the policy (post-ELD period to the years before the phased-in compliance of 2017), the presence of outliers or the composition of the treated group.

Abstract: By 2022, there were 21 states in the US that have legalized recreational marijuana. With the regulation of the market, comes the discussion about tax rates and how to capture the surplus from a growing and large industry. The legalization of recreational marijuana has been shown to affect health-related outcomes, but the evidence is scarce on the effects on public finance conditions. In this paper, I focus on the potential impact of recreational marijuana taxes on state governments' borrowing costs. Exploiting the staggered adoption of recreational dispensaries throughout the US in a difference-in-differences strategy, I find that issuers experience an improvement in their access to capital markets reflected in lower offering spreads and yields after the sales tax collection takes place. Some mechanisms show an actual increase in revenues, which could be perceived as a lower likelihood of financial strain and therefore, a lower credit risk.

Abstract: Does exposure to air pollution affect school performance? We build a rich panel of pollution data at the station-hour level in Bogota, the Colombian capital, and national standardized test scores for every student in the last year of high school. Our empirical approach exploits plausibly exogenous changes in the wind direction as an instrument of exposure to airborne particulate matter (PM2.5). The results show that a one-unit increase in PM2.5 reduces math scores by 0.08 standard deviations. The magnitude of the effects is higher for women than men. This paper shows the cost of pollution on human capital accumulation.

Abstract: Among the policies that the US government has implemented to aid low-income families — different from welfare — are those focused on income taxes and the requirement of labor. My main focus in this paper is on the Child Tax Credit (CTC), introduced in 1997 with the idea of helping working families offset the cost of raising children. Specifically, I examine the CTC expansion of 2009, in the midst of the Great Recession, and its effects on several early adulthood outcomes related to educational attainment, family formation, welfare recipiency and health insurance coverage. Using data from the ACS, and a difference in differences strategy, I analyze the medium-term effects of the reduction of the income eligibility threshold on those children potentially exposed to the tax changes. Since children under 17 years old are covered by the credit, more resources received by the household imply an increase in income that could be devoted to schooling investments, improvements in food security and improved health, which could ultimately lead to better lifetime outcomes. Preliminary results suggest that children potentially covered by the CTC expansion are less likely to earn a GED, more likely to graduate from high school and also more likely to attend college, 7 to 9 years after the tax credit expansion. They are also less likely to start a family early, depend less on food stamps and are more likely to have health insurance.