projects

Climate change is a global emergency, requiring both technological and institutional interventions to mitigate its effects. Among the contributions of political science to climate action are institutional solutions that address collective action problems, such as collective property rights. Accordingly, collective titling became a prominent conservation strategy in recent decades. However, empirical evidence on its effectiveness remains inconclusive, with inconsistent findings often lacking clear theoretical explanations. We bridge this gap by arguing that the impact of collective titling depends on the strength of intracommunity institutions – where communities with more cohesive institutions experience solider conservation outcomes, as suggested by the common-pool resource literature. We test this argument by analyzing the effects of collective titling programs on deforestation in Brazil. We find that while collective titling reduces degradation, its benefits are concentrated in communities with strong pre-existing collective institutions, highlighting a more nuanced reality than is often assumed in the policy literature.

This paper evaluates the impact of a rainwater harvesting intervention in rural public schools across Brazil’s semiarid region—a drought-prone and economically vulnerable area. Exploiting variation in program rollout and the timing of climate shocks, we estimate the causal effect of access to school-based rainwater systems on educational outcomes. I find that treated schools experience a 22% reduction in student dropout rates during droughts, indicating that water infrastructure significantly increases educational resilience to climate shocks. The program also leads to a 5% improvement in average academic performance, though we detect no effect on grade approval rates. Interestingly, we observe a decline in enrollment, likely reflecting broader demographic responses to extreme weather rather than direct program effects. These findings highlight the role of low-cost infrastructure in mitigating the educational impacts of climate shocks. While effective at the school level, our results suggest that broader adaptation strategies are needed to build fully resilient communities in the face of increasing climate volatility.

Why does deforestation persist despite land tenure reforms and environmental regulation? This paper develops a theoretical and empirical framework to explain how formal institutions (e.g., property rights), informal norms (e.g., social disapproval), and social instability (e.g., conflict and land grabbing) shape smallholders’ land use decisions in tropical forest regions. The model builds on rational decision-making, incorporating tenure insecurity, risk aversion, poverty, and local expectations. Empirically, the paper draws on two original survey experiments in Southern Meta and the surroundings of Chiribiquete National Park in Colombia—a deforestation hotspot marked by contested governance, recent conservation policies, and the presence of armed groups. The first experiment randomizes land titling, economic incentives, and enforcement actors (state vs. armed groups) to estimate their causal impact on deforestation preferences. The second investigates how people perceive property rights and the conditions under which they signal tenure security. Findings show that land titling reduces deforestation intentions only when individuals feel secure and embedded in strong community networks. Titles have little effect where tenure insecurity remains high. In contrast, informal social norms—especially fear of neighbors’ disapproval—strongly deter deforestation among locals. Poverty and risk aversion also drive short-term land clearing, while the role of armed groups varies: sometimes deterring deforestation, other times facilitating it. The paper contributes to debates on forest governance by: (1) highlighting overlooked factors like local identity and social embeddedness; (2) analyzing deforestation in conflict-affected areas; and (3) clarifying when property rights deter forest loss. Although focused on Colombia, the insights apply broadly across the Global South, underscoring the need to align formal incentives with local norms and address the structural drivers of deforestation.

A growing literature links democratic institutions, particularly elections, to increased deforestation but fails to fully explain how politicians manipulate forest access near elections. We propose a theoretical framework connecting electoral incentives, environmental policy, and outcomes, focusing on enforcement efforts. We argue that stringent enforcement often triggers electoral backlash, leading incumbents to reduce and strategically redistribute enforcement to avoid political costs. This results in higher deforestation rates, with enforcement leniency favoring core supporters and stricter penalties targeting opposition areas. This strategic behavior explains both the election-deforestation nexus and the mixed results in existing studies, highlighting the need to account for non-linear policy-making dynamics. Our findings offer a nuanced understanding of how electoral pressures shape environmental outcomes and suggest ways to design more resilient environmental policy.

How does climate adaptation affect fertility and birth outcomes? As global warming intensifies extreme droughts, access to water—already a challenge in many regions—is increasingly linked to reproductive decisions and pregnancy outcomes. Yet little is known about how household-level adaptation strategies shape fertility behavior or mitigate climate-related health risks. This paper studies Brazil’s “Cisterns Program,” a large-scale intervention providing low-cost rainwater harvesting systems to rural households in the drought-prone Semiarid region. Covering roughly 25% of the population, the program aims to smooth water consumption and increase resilience to climate shocks. We combine detailed administrative data on program rollout and household characteristics with Brazil’s complete birth registry from 2000–2022, covering over 5,000 municipalities and 510 microregions. Using this rich dataset, we analyze how access to cisterns affects birth outcomes, fertility timing, and exposure to waterborne diseases. We find that cisterns reduce the negative effects of droughts on birth weight, prematurity, and fetal death, while also lowering the incidence of diarrhea and intestinal illnesses. These effects are robust across specifications and suggest that household water security improves both maternal and child health under climate stress. Strikingly, we also detect a shift in the seasonality of conceptions in program areas—evidence that families adapt fertility planning to water availability. This behavioral response highlights a novel mechanism through which climate adaptation shapes demographic outcomes. Our findings underscore the potential of decentralized, low-cost infrastructure as an effective climate resilience strategy. In contexts where large-scale water systems are infeasible, household-level interventions like cisterns can protect vulnerable populations from the health and demographic impacts of climate change.

Forest certification is widely promoted as a tool for sustainable development, yet its socioeconomic impacts remain poorly understood. This paper evaluates the social and economic effects of Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certification in Brazil’s natural forest sector—one of the most influential and understudied contexts globally. While much of the existing literature has focused on the environmental or commercial benefits of certification, we highlight a critical gap: the lack of rigorous evidence on how certification affects local communities and workers. We begin with a systematic review of over 30 international studies on the socioeconomic outcomes of forest certification, noting that only a handful employ quasi-experimental methods, and none focus on Brazil. We then present the first causal analysis of FSC’s social impacts in the Brazilian Amazon, investigating outcomes such as household welfare, labor conditions, local governance, and Indigenous rights recognition. Drawing on multiple data sources and an original research design, we examine the mechanisms through which certification may generate social benefits—including wage standards, fair labor practices, and community participation. Our findings show that while FSC certification has potential to improve livelihoods and strengthen governance, its impacts are contingent on local institutional capacity and enforcement. In areas with weak state presence, certification may help fill governance gaps—but without robust oversight, its promises often go unrealized. The study contributes to the growing literature on sustainable resource governance by emphasizing the importance of aligning certification mechanisms with local social structures and accountability systems. By focusing on Brazil—the country with the highest number of FSC-certified hectares in the tropics—this study offers both a critical test of certification’s social footprint and actionable insights for improving the design of certification schemes in developing countries.