Assistant Professor of Economics, FGV EESP
I am an Assistant Professor of Economics at FGV EESP.
I am interested in environmental issues and their social effects.
Feel free to contact me about research, code, and data.
Email: rafael.araujo@fgv.br
with Juliano Assunção and José A. Scheinkman and Marina Hirota
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Preprint
Energy Economics. Preprint
Media: Folha, Jornal Nacional
with Francisco Costa and Teevrat Garg
Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists Preprint
Media: Nature CC
I develop a discrete choice model of deforestation with spatially heterogeneous endogenous climate. Using pixel-level data for the Amazon Rainforest and the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso, one of the most important agricultural hubs in the world, I estimate the model and consider a counterfactual where farmers are allowed to deforest protected areas. Deforestation reduces rainfall and increases temperatures for downwind farmers, creating cascading effects on a network of externalities. Ignoring climate feedback loops significantly underestimates the costs of deforestation, highlighting the importance of considering climate endogeneity beyond the production-emissions-temperature framework.
with Juliano Assunção and Arthur Bragança
Media: VoxDev
Investments in transportation infrastructure can impact the environment beyond their immediate surroundings. We build an inter-regional trade model to estimate the general equilibrium effects of changes in infrastructure on deforestation. Using panel data on the evolution of the transportation network from Brazil and land use data in the Amazon, we estimate the model and find sizable effects of infrastructure on deforestation. Model simulations show that ignoring general equilibrium underestimates deforestation impacts by one quarter. We also show that this model can be used to evaluate the deforestation induced by individual projects, an essential input for public policies.
with Francisco Costa and Marcelo Sant’Anna
Media: VoxDev
R&R The Review of Economic Studies
This paper estimates the Brazilian Amazon’s carbon-efficient forestation – i.e., when farmers internalize the social cost of carbon. We propose a dynamic discrete choice model of land use and estimate it using a panel of land use and carbon stock of 5.7 billion pixels between 2008 and 2017. Business-as-usual implies an inefficient release of 44 gigatons of CO2 in the long run resulting from deforestation of an area twice the size of France. We find that small carbon taxes can mitigate a substantial part of inefficient deforestation. Only relatively larger taxes on cattle production would achieve a similar effect.
with Bruna Borges, Francisco Costa, and Kelly Santos
Gender gaps in land ownership are common across the world, favoring male-headed households with more wealth and land. In low- and middle-income countries, where women lack property, inheritance, and credit rights, these disparities contribute to gender inequality in rural areas. The adoption of advanced agricultural technology, while economically positive, can worsen gender disparities. This paper studies the impact of new agricultural technologies on female land ownership, focusing on genetically engineered (GE) soy seeds in Brazil. Despite technology’s potential to reduce gender inequality, we find a significant decline in female landownership in GE soy-exposed regions. We examine the role of mechanisms like credit access, property rights, and gender norms. We find that the effects are more pronounced where rural credit is more abundant, property rights are stronger, and gender norms are more unequal. Our findings highlight the unintended consequences of the spread of new technologies on rural asset ownership, underscoring the importance of considering gender disparities in crafting agricultural and climate change strategies.
with Leila Pereira and Rogerio Santarrosa
We examine the impact of short-term temperature changes on voting behavior in the Brazilian presidential elections from 2010 to 2018, focusing on the candidacy of Marina Silva, a prominent pro-environment politician. Using data on municipality-level voting and daily wet bulb temperature, we find that an increase in temperature on election day increases votes for Marina Silva. We argue that this effect is driven by the salience of climate change issues, which influences last-minute voting decisions. Our analysis also shows that temperature variations in the days preceding the election have a limited impact on voting outcomes, highlighting the transient nature of climate salience effects.
Climate Policy Initiative and AWS, 2023.
Media: O’Eco, O Globo
Climate Policy Initiative, 2021.
Media: Valor, O’Eco
Climate Policy Initiative, 2020.
with Arthur Bragança and Juliano Assunção