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Research

You can find more about my projects in my CV.

Working papers

  • Highway Site Selection and Race: Evidence from the US Interstate Highway System
    [Draft] [Show Abstract] [Hide Abstract]
    This paper examines the causes and consequences of urban highway placements in the US. By exploiting cross-sectional variation in 1950, the last census before the Federal program that initiated highway construction, I find that tracts with a higher proportion of the city’s Black population were more likely to have highways constructed through them. These effects do not stem from a deliberate Federal agenda to build highways in Black neighbor- hoods but rather from State officials utilizing highway construction for their own purposes. Turning to the consequences for treated neighborhoods, by employing a matched difference-in-difference model, I find that tracts where highways are constructed experience a decline in the White population over the long term while the number of Black households remains unaffected. Moreover, highway construction decreases the number of housing units but does not impact median land prices.
  • Does the College Bias of Agglomeration Externalities Vary Across the Work-Cycle and Time?
    October 2021.
    [Draft] [Show Abstract] [Hide Abstract]
    This paper documents the heterogeneous rise in the urban gradient of the college wage gap across workers of different ages between 1980 and 2019. Using immigrants' enclaves from 1970 as source of identification, I find that the young workers have traditionally had a steeper relationship between college wage gap and city population than old workers. Also, I find that the evolution of this urban gradient of the college wage gap has been larger for younger workers. These findings are not caused by sorting in unobserved characteristics, by outliers in the wage distribution, or by compositional changes. I show that the source of the increase in the urban component of the college wage gap is a shift in the occupational structure across the work-cycle and cities. While old and young college workers have shifted away from highly-routinary-low-paying jobs, specially in more populated cities, young high school graduates’ occupational structure has remained unaltered since 1980.

Work in progress

Book Chapters

  • Una Restricción Vehicular Inteligente para la Congestión y Contaminación de Santiago
    with JP Montero, L. Basso, F. Sepúlveda, L. Cifuentes, and S. Vicuña. In Spanish.
    [Draft] [Show Abstract] [Hide Abstract]
    Ante los persistentes problemas de congestión y contaminación en la ciudad de Santiago, avanzamos en una propuesta de política pública de restricción vehicular que se construye a partir de iniciativas impulsadas en el pasado por el Ministerio de Medio Ambiente y el Ministerio de Transporte y Telecomunicaciones. Se trata de un diseño “inteligente”, porque: (i) lleva a un aumento importante (aunque menor que el máximo posible) de bienestar en la población, tanto por reducciones en tiempos de viaje como de contaminantes locales y globales; (ii) incluye medidas para distribuir los beneficios de la política en forma más equitativa entre los distintos grupos de ingreso; y (iii) tiene factibilidad política de implementación, ya que comparte elementos de propuestas existentes o bajo consideración. Nuestra propuesta base incluye una restricción de dos días a la semana (cuatro dígitos diarios) durante horas punta, con una opción de eximición, previo pago de un pase diario que depende del tipo de vehículo y época del año. De octubre a marzo, el pase diario estaría disponible a todo vehículo a un precio de $9.000. De abril a septiembre, el pase diario estaría disponible solo para vehículos que cumplan con la normativa de emisión Euro III. El total de la recaudación de los pases diarios se destina al transporte público, ya sea para mejorar su servicio (aumentos de frecuencia) y/o reducir sus tarifas. En caso que el 100% de la recaudación se destine a esto último, las tarifas caerían en 35%.

Pre-doctoral work

  • Air Pollution and Road Safety
    December 2017.
    [Draft] [Show Abstract] [Hide Abstract]
    I link 6-hour air pollution exposure to the total number of car accidents in the city of Santiago by exploiting time-series variation from 2013 to 2016. In order to identify the causal effect of CO exposure, I use plausible exogenous variation in atmospheric stability to instrument CO exposure. I found a nonlinear relationship between CO exposure and the total number of car accidents. This result is driven by nonfatal accidents. Indeed, I do not find any impact on fatal accidents. In addition, the results hold under a battery of robustness checks. Although Santiago’s CO level is far below the international criteria of a hazardous level, I argue that reducing the average level of pollution leads to a sizable increase in social welfare due to a reduction in the number of car accidents.
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