Research

I study political violence, public policy, organised crime, and collective action, mostly in Latin American settings. On the methods side, I work with survey and field experiments, impact evaluation, meta-analysis, and computational social science tools for administrative data.

Jump to Articles · Working papers · Book · Chapters · Other · Awards & service

Peer-reviewed articles

2026

Investigating the Analytical Robustness of the Social and Behavioural Sciences

With Balázs Aczél, Barnabás Szászi, Brian A. Nosek, and others

Nature, 652, 135–142

Published version

2025

The Reliability of Replications: A Study in Computational Reproductions

With Nate Breznau, Eike Mark Rinke, Alexander Wuttke, and others

Royal Society Open Science, 12(3), 241038

Published version Replication files

2025

Legislature Size and Welfare: Evidence From Brazil

With Umberto Mignozzetti and Gabriel Cepaluni

American Journal of Political Science, 69(3), 831–846

Published version Replication files Media: Australian Institute of International Affairs

2023

Vigilantism and Institutions: Attitudes toward Lynching in Brazil

With David Skarbek

Research & Politics, 10(1), 1–8

Published version Replication files

2021

The Effect of Legislature Size on Distributive Politics: A Meta-Analysis

With Umberto Mignozzetti, Catarina Roman, and Huzeyfe Alptekin

British Journal of Political Science

Published version Replication files

2021

Institutional Design and Elite Support for Climate Policies: Evidence from Latin American Countries

With Umberto Mignozzetti and David Skarbek

Journal of Experimental Political Science, Summer 2021, 172–184

Published version Replication files

2020

Bottom-Up Accountability and Public Service Provision: Evidence from a Field Experiment in Brazil

With Manoel Galdino and Umberto Mignozzetti

Research & Politics, 7(2), 1–8

Published version Replication files

2019

congressbr: An R Package for Analysing Data from Brazil’s Chamber of Deputies and Federal Senate

With Robert McDonnell and Guilherme Duarte

Latin American Research Review, 54(4), 958–969

Published version Software repository

2019

Beasts of Prey or Rational Animals?: Private Governance in Brazil’s Jogo do Bicho

Danilo Freire

Latin American Perspectives, 46(4), 230–244

Published version Media: BBC Brazil

2018

Evaluating the Effect of Homicide Prevention Strategies in São Paulo, Brazil: A Synthetic Control Approach

Danilo Freire

Latin American Research Review, 53(2), 231–249

Published version Replication files Media: Valor Econômico

2018

prisonbrief: An R Package that Returns Tidy Data from the World Prison Brief Website

With Robert McDonnell

Journal of Open Source Software, 3(22), 361

Published version Software repository

2015

Lack of Preferences, Political Trust and Education Levels: Alternative Explanations for Invalid Votes in Brazilian Elections

With Guilherme Arbache and Pietro Rodrigues

Encuentro Latinoamericano, 1(1), 29–50

PDF Replication files

2014

Between Ballot Boxes and Guns: The Competitiveness of the Executive Branch and Civil Wars, 1976–2000

Danilo Freire

Revista Española de Ciencia Política, 36, 33–60

PDF Replication files

Working papers

Financial Incentives and Health Care Provision: Evidence from an Experimental Aedes aegypti Control Programme in Brazil

With Umberto Mignozzetti. Under review.

GitHub

Legislative Outcomes and Malapportionment: Evidence from Latin America

With Umberto Mignozzetti and Catarina Roman

PDF

Democratising Policy Analytics with AutoML

Danilo Freire

PDF

What Drives State-Sponsored Violence? Evidence from Extreme Bounds Analysis and Ensemble Learning Methods

With Gary Uzonyi

OSF

Environmental Protection in Weak Party Systems: Evidence from Brazil

With Umberto Mignozzetti. In preparation.

Natural Disasters and Identity Reconstruction Among Syrian Refugees

With Hamoon Khelghat-Doost. In preparation.

Book

Natural Resources and Policy Choices in Latin America

Edited with Giovanna França and Umberto Mignozzetti

São Paulo: Konrad Adenauer Foundation, 2020

PDF

Book chapters

Prison Gangs

With David Skarbek

In: Griffin, Hayden; Woodward, Vanessa (ed.). Handbook of Corrections in the United States. London: Routledge, 2017, 399–408

OSF

A Nova Gestão Pública e a Qualidade da Democracia

Danilo Freire

In: Erkens, Rainer (ed.). Nova Gestão Pública. São Paulo: Instituto Friedrich Naumann, 2010, 9–15

PDF

Other publications

Geopolitics of Renewable Energies in Latin America: A Survey

With Umberto Mignozzetti

Policy Report commissioned by the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung, 2019

PDF

Peering at Open Peer Review

Danilo Freire

The Political Methodologist, 2015, 23(1), 6–11

PDF

Book Review: Causal Inference, Shaolin-Style – “Mastering Metrics” by Joshua D. Angrist and Jörn-Steffen Pischke

Danilo Freire

Brazilian Political Science Review, 2015, 9(3), 178–185

PDF

Entering the Underworld: Prison Gang Recruitment in São Paulo’s Primeiro Comando da Capital

Danilo Freire

MA Thesis in International Relations, The Graduate Institute Geneva, 2014

PDF

Book Review: “Why Nations Fail” by Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson

Danilo Freire

Meridiano47, 2013, 14(135)

PDF

Entre Urnas e Armas: A Competitividade do Executivo e as Guerras Civis, 1976–2000

Danilo Freire

MA Thesis in Political Science, University of São Paulo, 2011

PDF Replication files

Awards and service

Selected awards

  • Google Social Impact Challenge Grant (US$300,000)
  • Konrad Adenauer Stiftung Research Grant (US$64,000)
  • Fellow, Evidence in Governance and Politics (EGAP)
  • Associate Fellow, Advance HE
  • Graduate Research Studentship, King’s College London

Service

  • Associate Editor, International Social Science Journal
  • Associate Editor, Humanities & Social Sciences Communications (2021–2026)
  • Co-editor, Leviathan, University of São Paulo (2012–2016)
  • Referee for AJPS, JPR, BJPS, Electoral Studies, and 14 other journals