Research

Publications

Two Decades of Top Income Shares in Honduras - Journal of Public Economics 2025, Volume 246 

Corporate Taxation and Evasion Responses: Evidence from a Minimum Tax in Honduras American Economic Journal: Economic Policy 2024, 16(1): 482-517.

(with Felipe Lobel and Pedro Zuniga) 

[Working paper][International Tax and Public Finance PhD Student award at IIPF 2020] [Short policy note (in Spanish)]

Selecting Top Bureaucrats: Admission Exams and Performance in Brazil  - The Review of Economics and Statistics 2025 (2): 408-425

The Importance of Political Selection for Bureaucratic Effectiveness. Economica. 2023; 90(359):  746 - 779. doi: 10.1111/ecca.12470 

Working Papers

The Elusive Impact of Corporate Tax Incentives  [New!]

Despite the large fiscal footprint of corporate tax incentives, limited causal evidence exists on their impact on economic outcomes. This paper helps fill this gap by exploiting the phasing out of a large income tax exemption scheme for export- oriented firms in Tunisia. Using data on the universe of registered Tunisian firms, the analysis shows that the reform caused a decline in the entry of new firms in the sector previously benefiting from the incentives. However, the reduced entry did not translate into any effects on employment, revenue, or the wage bill, as the reform did not impact the activities of incumbent firms, which account for the bulk of economic activity in Tunisia. The findings are robust to addressing various threats to the empirical identification, and they confirm emerging evidence casting doubt on the importance of tax incentives to determine investments relative to other factors in an economy.

Exploring the Gender Divide in Real Estate Ownership and Property Tax Compliance [New!] 

This paper investigates gender disparities in residential property ownership and tax compliance in a large Argentine municipality using detailed tax administrative data. While ownership is evenly distributed between women, men, and co-owned properties up to the 40th percentile of the value distribution, higher-value properties exhibit significant gender disparities, with women’s share dropping to less than 20% in the top 1%. Tax compliance increases with property value, with an average evasion rate of 46%, and men and women are equally likely to meet their tax obligations across the distribution. However, women face slightly higher effective tax rates due to owning lower-value properties, which are disproportionately affected by a mildly regressive tax schedule. Gender responses to enforcement measures are also comparable. A soft randomized communication campaign significantly increased timely payments equally for both men and women, with men responding more quickly. Similarly, the findings show no gender-based differences in responses to macroeconomic shocks such as COVID-19. The study underscores the role of property tax in promoting equitable revenue mobilization and highlights the importance of gender-disaggregated data for informing tax policy and enforcement strategies.

VAT Refunds and Firms’ Performance: Evidence from a Withholding Reform in Honduras 

Late or unreliable refunds of credits undermine the best traits of value-added tax (VAT) systems and might affect firms' growth and investment opportunities. This paper uses administrative tax records in Honduras to study a tax reform that decreased the withholding rate of value-added tax liabilities by credit and debit card (DCC) providers, aiming to curb unrefunded credits. Using a difference-in-differences approach, exploiting differential exposure to the reform, the paper documents that it caused a decrease in excessive withholding and was equivalent to a cut of 1.1 percentage points in effective tax rates faced by treated firms. The paper then evaluates the effects on firms' economic performance and estimate 0 effects on several indicators of economic growth and investment. The results challenge the premise that unrefunded VAT credits are an important constraint to firm growth in certain settings. Keywords: VAT refunds, withholding, firms’ performance.

Trade-offs in the Design of Simplified Tax Regimes: Evidence from Sub-Saharan Africa 

This paper provides novel evidence of the trade-offs policy makers face when designing simplified tax regimes for small businesses. First, it provides a comprehensive stocktaking of the main features of these regimes across Sub-Saharan Africa: they are adopted by two-thirds of countries, but their design varies greatly. Second, it draws on administrative and survey data for a thorough examination of a specific simplified tax regime. This analysis shows most small businesses lack knowledge about design features, such as the existence of a minimum exemption threshold, but they react strongly to increases in tax rates by lowering their declared turnover. Finally, the paper presents the results of an experiment that encourages taxpayers to pay fixed amounts—a potential alternative design of a simplified tax regime that aims for a better balance of the trade-offs facing policy makers. The findings show that providing simple guidance about how much small businesses with similar characteristics typically pay in taxes can increase revenue, but this reduces equity among taxpayers.

Speed of Payment in Procurement Contracts: The Role of Political Connections 

We provide evidence of a new channel through which politicians can exchange favors with campaign donors: earlier payment in procurement contracts. We exploit an electoral reform in Brazil that bans corporate contributions and partially breaks down the relationship between donors and politicians. Using a within-firm difference-in-differences identification strategy, we find that connected firms experience longer payment terms post-reform. The effect is larger in municipalities with low liquidity, where payment delays are more common, and for contracts awarded through a competitive tendering process. Our results point to the importance of designing rules that curb discretion over the contract execution process in government purchases.

MiDES: New Data and Facts from Local Procurement and Budget Execution in Brazil   

Corporate Responses to  Size-Based Tax Rates in Lithuania  

Building State Capacity: What is the Impact of Development Projects? 

Targeting in Tax Compliance Interventions: Experimental Evidence from Honduras 

Tax authorities often use low-cost communication with taxpayers to encourage voluntary compliance and avoid other costly interventions. This paper reports findings from an experiment with more than 30,000 taxpayers in Honduras, designed to assess how taxpayers with different risk scores respond to a communication intervention. Across several outcomes, the average effect of the intervention on compliance was zero. Contrary to the expectation of experts surveyed, only taxpayers considered to be at low risk of noncompliance increase their filing and reported income. Using rich administrative data and a causal forest algorithm, the paper finds that ex-ante predicted risk and responsiveness to the intervention are negatively correlated. These findings can inform the design of targeted interventions by tax authorities. 

Work in Progress

The Financial Risk of Winning a Procurement Contract: Evidence from Chile

Promotions, Performance, and Diversity in the Brazilian Judiciary 

Pre-Doctoral Research

"Sifting through the Data: Labor Markets in Haiti through a Turbulent Decade (2001-2012)" 

"But … what is the poverty rate today? Testing poverty nowcasting methods in Latin America and the Caribbean"

"Cyclical Variations in Participation and Employment in Urban Brazil"

"Investing in people to fight poverty in Haiti: reflections for evidence-based policy making (Haiti Poverty Assessment)"