Research

Research interests

  • Substantive: Public Policy, Political Violence, Organised Crime, Collective Action, Brazilian Politics
  • Methodological: Computational Social Science, Impact Evaluation, Field Experiments, Meta-Analysis

Peer-reviewed articles

The Reliability of Replications: A Study in Computational Reproductions

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

Royal Society Open Science, 2025

DOI Replication files

Legislature Size and Welfare: Evidence From Brazil

With Umberto Mignozzetti and Gabriel Cepaluni

American Journal of Political Science, 2024

DOI Replication files Media: Australian Institute of International Affairs

Vigilantism and Institutions: Attitudes toward Lynching in Brazil

With David Skarbek

Research & Politics, 2023, 10(1), 1–8

DOI Replication files

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

With Umberto Mignozzetti, Catarina Roman, and Huzeyfe Alptekin

British Journal of Political Science, 2021

DOI Replication files

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

DOI Replication files

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

With Manoel Galdino and Umberto Mignozzetti

Research & Politics, 2020, 7(2), 1–8

DOI Replication files

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, 2019, 54(4), 958–969

DOI Software repository

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

Danilo Freire

Latin American Perspectives, 2019, 46(4), 230–244

DOI Media: BBC Brazil

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

Danilo Freire

Latin American Research Review, 2018, 53(2), 231–249

DOI Replication files Media: Valor Economico

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

With Robert McDonnell

Journal of Open Source Software, 2018, 3(22), 361

DOI Software repository

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

With Guilherme Arbache and Pietro Rodrigues

Encuentro Latinoamericano, 2015, 1(1), 29–50

PDF Replication files

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

Danilo Freire

Revista Espanola de Ciencia Politica, 2014, 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 Franca and Umberto Mignozzetti

Sao 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 Gestao Publica e a Qualidade da Democracia

Danilo Freire

In: Erkens, Rainer (ed.). Nova Gestao Publica. Sao 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 Jorn-Steffen Pischke

Danilo Freire

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

PDF

Entering the Underworld: Prison Gang Recruitment in Sao 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 Sao 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
  • Referee for AJPS, JPR, BJPS, Electoral Studies, and 14 other journals
  • Co-editor, Leviathan, University of Sao Paulo (2012–2016)