Dissertation Defense: “Essays in Applied Economics”, Camilo Abbate Granada, University of California, Santa Barbara
Speaker
Camilo Abbate Granada, University of California, Santa Barbara
Biography
Camilo Abbate is a PhD Candidate at the University of California, Santa Barbara. His research interests include Development, Public Economics, and Economics of Education. His recent work examines how intergovernmental transfers influence local government finances in Paraguay, as well as political outcomes and voter behavior. He holds an MA from Torcuato Di Tella University.
Title
“Essays in Applied Economics”
Abstract
This dissertation examines how institutional design, resource allocation, and formal rules shape behavior in political and social systems. Across three chapters, I combine quasi-experimental empirical methods with original panel datasets to evaluate outcomes in local public finance, electoral competition, and professional sports.
The first chapter investigates the asymmetric effects of intergovernmental transfers on local public finances and political dynamics in Paraguay. Exploiting a flawed census that generated plausibly exogenous variation in transfer allocations, I find that municipalities receiving unexpected increases sharply reduce their own-source tax effort, while those facing cuts expand local tax collection. Beyond this fiscal substitution, these exogenous transfer shocks distort local accountability, reducing voter turnout and shifting mayoral ambitions away from local reelection toward central government positions.
The second chapter, coauthored with Fabrizio Cruz, examines the electoral returns to incumbency and the mechanisms of dominant-party survival in Paraguayan municipalities. Using a regression discontinuity design in close elections, we document a precise null effect of incumbency on the ruling party's subsequent vote share. However, despite the absence of a traditional electoral advantage, the dominant Colorado Party (ANR) sustains its hegemony through institutional engineering: the ANR strategically responds to narrow local defeats by using its legislative majority to subdivide municipalities, thereby creating new, structurally favorable districts and unlocking additional fiscal transfer flows.
The third chapter, coauthored with Jeffrey Cross and Richard Uhrig, explores the role of objective review systems in mitigating human bias and social pressure. Exploiting the staggered implementation of the Video Assistant Referee (VAR) across 16 top domestic soccer leagues between 2009 and 2019, we estimate the system's effect on home field advantage. While VAR successfully decreased total offsides and yellow cards, it had negligible effects on overall home field advantage, highlighting how limited scope can constrain the effectiveness of review processes in neutralizing complex social pressures.
JEL Codes: D72, D91, H71, H77, L83, Z20
Event Details
Join us for Camilo’s dissertation defense, where he will present his dissertation titled “Essays in Applied
Economics”. We invite you to attend this important academic milestone and learn more about his work in the field.
To access a copy of the dissertation here, you must have an active UCSB NetID and password.
