Research Outline

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# Research Outline
## Teesside University
### Danilo Freire
### 12 December 2019

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# Background

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* Hi, I'm Danilo!

* PhD in Political Economy, King's College London

* Postdoctoral Research Associate, Brown University

* Research areas: 
	- Public service provision
	- Criminal and political violence
	- Collective action problems
	- Causal inference methods

* One ongoing project for each research area
]
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# Public service provision

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* Motivating questions:
	- How do we foster vertical accountability and sanction malfeasant officeholders?
	- How can we increase bureaucratic performance and improve the quality of public services?

* Previous research:
	- "Bottom-Up Accountability and Public Service Provision: Evidence from a Field Experiment in Brazil" (R&R _Research and Politics_)
	- "Incentives in Preventive Healthcare Provision: Zika in Brazil" (writing stage)
]
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# Next steps

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* Evaluate the impact of vertical accountability on healthcare outcomes
	- Test the effect of an information-sharing app on public performance

* Funding:
	- Secured US$65,000 from the Brazilian Ministry of Education and the Getulio Vargas Foundation

* Investigators:
	- Danilo Freire (Brown) and Umberto Mignozzetti (NYU/FGV)
]

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# Dynamics of criminal violence

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* Motivating questions:
	- How do criminals enforce rules and promote trade when the state is unable or unwilling to act?
	- What is the effect of prison gang truces on homicide levels?

* Previous research:
	- "Evaluating the Effect of Homicide Prevention Strategies in São Paulo, Brazil: A Synthetic Control Approach" (LARR)
	- "Beasts of Prey or Rational Animals?: Private Governance in Brazil's _Jogo do Bicho_" (LAPS)
	- "Prison Gangs" (Handbook of US Corrections)
]

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# Next steps

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* Describe under what conditions prison gangs establish alliances in new territories
	- Collect survey data and create a new dataset of administrative records on the expansion of Brazil's two main prison gangs
	- Evaluate the impact of their disputes and alliances on violent crime

* Funding:
	- Grant application at Brown University and the Brazilian Ministry of Education

* Investigators:
	- Danilo Freire (Brown) and David Skarbek (Brown)
]
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# Collective action in climate regimes

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* Motivating questions:
	- How to promote international climate cooperation among players with heterogeneous preferences? 
	- Which institutional features do elites favour for climate change policies?

* Related research:
	- "Institutional Design and Elite Support for Climate Policies: Evidence from Latin American Countries" (R&R _Journal of Experimental Political Science_)
	- "Policy Report for the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung Latin American Programme for Energy Security and Climate" (EKLA-KAS)
]
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# Next steps

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* Measure public preferences on climate institutions in 10 Latin American countries

* Extend our previous research to analyse elite opinions on stranded assets and renewables

* Funding:
	- Secured US$ 130,000 from the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung and the Getulio Vargas Foundation (matching grant)

* Investigators:
	- Danilo Freire (Brown), Umberto Mignozzetti (NYU/FGV), David Skarbek (Brown), and Michael Aklin (UPitt)
]
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# Inference with observational data

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* Shortcomings of quantitative social science
	- Explanation: lack of robustness in observational studies
	- Prediction: reliance on black-box algorithms

* Two main goals:
	- Develop a new measure of sensitivity to assess omitted variable bias
	- Introduce the literature on causal machine learning to the social science community and extend it to RDDs
]
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# Future work

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* "Using Sensitivity Analysis to Assess Omitted Variable Bias"
	- Extend the methodology implemented by Cinelli & Hazlitt (2019)
	- Generalise their methods to cover IV, RD, and DiD designs

* "Uncovering Causal Relations in Observational Data Using Machine Learning and Graphical Models"
	- Present an overview of the recent advances in the causality algorithms with applications 
	- Write free and easy-to-use software for quanti- and qualitative scholars

* Investigators:
	- Danilo Freire (Brown) and Carlos Cinelli (UCLA)
]

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# Research as Teesside University

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* Multi-disciplinary partnerships at Teesside University:
	- Public Health Research Centre/Healthcare Innovation Centre
	- Centre for Crime, Harm and Security
	- Machine Intelligence Research Group

* Partnerships abroad:
	- Brown University, UCLA, Getulio Vargas Foundation, University of São Paulo

* Funding:
	- Apply to collective grants that benefit the university
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# Thank you very much!

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# Contact information

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* Email: <danilofreire@brown.edu>

* Website: <http://danilofreire.github.io>

* Postal Address:
	- Brown University 
	- The Political Theory Project
	- 8 Fones Alley, office 114
	- Providence, RI 02906, USA
]