I have a DPhil in Economics at the University of Oxford. I do research on development economics. My main paper examines the long-lasting effect of Premiahorro, a matched savings program that combined financial literacy training with a flexible commitment strategy.
Email:pavel@pavellsierra.com
Research from thesis
Paying the Poor to Save: The Long-Lasting Effect of Premiahorro (download current version)
Can paying people to save help them to save and does the effect persist once payment stops? I assess the effect of Premiahorro (2009-2015), a large-scale program for low- income people in Mexico. To help people save, Premiahorro combined three features: financial training, a match, and a flexible commitment savings strategy. Identification relies on monthly administrative records from the bank that offered the program. I estimate differences-in-differences on a sample of participants matched with an equal number of non-participants. To choose the propensity score model, I use post-double lasso selection to parse over 276 variables that account for a wide-array of savings constraints. While it was active, Premiahorro increased savings balances by 48 percent and the number of deposits by 200 percent. After it was phased out, the effects persist, savings balances increasing by 66 percent and the number of deposits by 38 percent. Participants kept at the bank two-thirds of what they saved and received in matches. As they were taught, they saved most of the money, increasing their resilience against shocks. By combining three features instead of providing each on its own, Premiahorro helped people to save. And once it was phased out, its positive effect persisted.
(with Michael Koelle) Effect of the Mexican War on Drugs on Violent Crime and Economic Activity (download current version)
We explore the economic consequences of organized crime, focusing on the Mexican War on Drugs as a natural experiment. We document the effect on violence and on economic activity of kingpin removals—arrests or killing of high-ranking officers of criminal organizations. In a difference-in-differences approach that accounts for the staggered adoption design of the removals, we find they triggered violence in Mexico, increasing homicides (+55%), extortions (+43%), and kidnappings (+96%). The surge in violence affected economic outcomes both at the micro and macro level, decreasing firm survival (-7%) and aggregated firm production per capita (-17%).
Intrahousehold Conflict and Commitment Savings Strategies (download current version)
Intrahousehold conflict stemming from disagreements about what and when to consume can lead people to use commitment savings strategies. Using household survey information (MxFLS) for a large and nationally representative sample of couples in Mexico, I test whether one or the other or both disagreements engender higher use. Anderson and Baland (2012) model predicts that a woman in a couple will use the strategies at mid-levels of her bargaining power. For identification I create a measure of relative earnings as a distribution factor that quantifies bargaining power and exploit the Great Recession as a labor shock that affected women employment disproportionally. A woman who is less or more patient than her partner likely disagrees with him about when to consume (Schaner, 2015). Using discount factors elicited by the household survey, I test whether patience relative to the partner leads to higher use. In an instrumented difference-in-differences, I find that both disagreements engender higher use. Use is higher for a woman with bargaining power equal to her partner’s. Relative to a woman as patient as her partner, a woman who is less or more patient is twice as likely to use the strategy.