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MPRC -> People -> Rodrigo Soares

Recent Scientific Accomplishments

Soares received his Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Chicago in 2002. His dissertation, entitled “Life Expectancy, Educational Attainment, and Fertility Choice: The Economic Impacts of Mortality Reductions,? earned him the 2003 Brazilian National Award for Ph.D. Dissertations in Economics (Prêmio Haralambos Simeonidis). Rodrigo’s research centers on development economics, ranging from health and population economics to corruption, institutions, and crime. His work has appeared in various scientific journals, including American Economic Review, Journal of Development Economics, Economic Development and Cultural Change, and Journal of Health Economics. Recently, he was awarded ?together with co-authors Gary S. Becker and Tomas J. Philipson ?the Kenneth J. Arrow Award from the International Health Economics Association for the best paper published in the field of Health Economics during 2005. Soares is currently a member of the editorial panel of Economía ?The Journal of the Latin American and Caribbean Economic Association. He has been a consultant to the World Bank in projects related to health and inequality in Latin America and to the development impact of the illegal drug trade. In addition, he has acted as referee or reviewer for over 20 academic journals and/or research foundations, and has also participated in over 20 international conferences.

Funded Research

Soares?research on the interaction between health, fertility, and investments in human capital has been funded by the NIH (“Demographic Transition and the Sexual Division of Labor,?2005-2007). His research on methodological aspects of the economic evaluation of health policies has been funded by the Brazilian National Research Council (CNPq #301923/2004-3, project “Altruism and the Social Value of Mortality Reductions,?2005-2007).

Future Research Plans

Soares?future research plans are related to the different dimensions of health, and their implications for welfare and development. This includes understanding the determinants of recent improvements in health in the developing world, which have been largely independent of improvements in income, as well as measuring the welfare implications of these improvements. Ongoing research using municipality level data from Brazil between 1970 and 2000 tries to tackle these issues, by analyzing the role of education, public health infrastructure and specific interventions (such as a family health programs). At the same time, a more theoretically oriented work tries to expand the methodology for economic evaluation of health policies, in order to be able to account for the welfare of future generations in the evaluation of current policies (which may have long lasting benefits or costs). This is an issue that has for a long time troubled policymakers, as well as researchers in the areas of public finance, health, and environmental economics. Finally, there are also research projects targeted at understanding the causal role of health improvements in determining changes in fertility and investments in human capital. This research effort makes use of both cross-country panels and micro data regarding specific health interventions in Brazil (as the family health program mentioned before) in order to analyze the impact of exogenous changes in health on the size of families and on investments in human capital.