Dalila Figueiredo, Ph.D.
I am a development and applied micro-economist working mainly on three related topics: child development, discrimination and poverty. In my work, I use both observational data and experiments to identify the set of policies or optimal incentive schemes to increase individuals’ welfare. In the field of child development, I investigate whether children and households respond to large-scale policies in aspects that were not directly targeted by policymakers. This research contributes to the understanding of how policies and programs can have positive or negative unintended effects and through which mechanisms. I also have an active research agenda on discrimination. I investigate possible discrimination sources, consequences, and strategies to minimise people or institutions’ discriminatory behaviour. Finally, I am also interested in the existence of individual-level poverty traps and how to design incentive-compatible policies that can move people from a bad equilibrium to a good one.