Public Housing, Climate Adaptation Policies, and Infant Health in Brazil

• Grant number: 24/13220-3
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships abroad - Research Internship - Doctorate
• Start date: January 06, 2025
• End date: November 05, 2025
• Field of knowledge: Applied Social Sciences - Economics - Regional and Urban Economics
• Principal Investigator: Daniel Ferreira Pereira Gonçalves da Mata
• Grantee: Pedro Augusto Costa Oliveira
• Supervisor: Edson Roberto Severnini
• Host Institution: Escola de Administração de Empresas de São Paulo (EAESP). Fundação Getúlio Vargas (FGV). São Paulo , SP, Brazil
• Institution abroad: Boston College (BC), United States
• Associated to the scholarship: 23/14094-9 - Impact Evaluation of Urban Infrastructure Projects, BP.DR

Abstract

This research aims to assess if better housing infrastructure may attenuate the effects of climate change on infant health, working as a climate adaptation policy. To this end, we will first investigate how natural disasters associated with extreme weather events (e.g. floods, landslides) affect neonatal health. Next, we will examine whether the effect of these climatic events is attenuated for children of beneficiaries of the Minha Casa Minha Vida (MCMV) program, one of the largest housing programs in the world. We will combine administrative and geocoded data from several sources (such as birth records, beneficiaries of social programs, rainfall, and occurrence of natural disasters) and employ a staggered difference-in-differences approach, building on the recent advances of the literature. This project complements and expands the original FAPESP proposal, with the aim of providing evidence on the relevant role of housing and urban infrastructure in a new dimension, namely as a climate adaptation strategy. Our results will be important to both the economics literature and public policy. Our research will be the first, as far as we know, to causally assess the effect of housing infrastructure as a mechanism of adaptation to climate change and may reveal an important path to public policy. Furthermore, our results will also add to the well-established literature on the effects of prenatal shocks and early life circumstances, which are known to have long-lasting effects on individuals' lives.