Postdoctoral Researcher · FGV Analytics

Public policies, crime, governance, and development

My research investigates how governance emerges in contexts of weak state capacity and contested coercion. I study criminal organizations, police forces and other violent actors as political actors. My interest lies in understanding how violence professionals regulate markets, deploy violence strategically, and affect development outcomes. I examine when these outcomes entail welfare gains versus entrenchment of coercive authority. My central objective in academic research is to map and estimate the costs imposed by criminal market violence on the most vulnerable social groups. My APSR article "Peace Dividends" demonstrates that the PCC, a large criminal organization from Brazil, has provided predictable governance in São Paulo, reducing homicides and stimulating local employment and firm creation. Elsewhere, I have studied how the strengthening of other types of organizations (police forces, paramilitary groups) are driving urbanization and development outcomes. Beyond my interest in the criminal actors themselves, I am interested in understanding how the illegal and informal markets controlled by criminal organizations are drivers of violence, corruption, and territorial conflicts. This dynamic is visible in my works when looking at commodities that are made illegal (cannabis, cocaine), informal (transit, governance, utilities), or even in legal commodities with well-developed formal markets, such as gold and housing. Methodologically, I employ fieldwork-informed quasi-experimental econometric methods, leveraging geo-located administrative microdata, satellite measures, and crowd-sourced information. My collaborator network includes political scientists, economists, sociologists, and epidemiologists at different university research centers, and non-governmental organizations.