I am a PhD candidate in Economics at the University of California, Berkeley. I am an applied microeconomist, and my research focuses on the effects of public policy on Latin America, with special emphasis on education. Prior to coming to Berkeley, I got my B.A. and M.A. in Economics at Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile.
I am currently in the Job Market (Fall 2024).
Email: jfuenzalida@berkeley.edu | Office 524, Evans Hall, UC Berkeley
Co-authors: Felipe Vial and Harrison Wheeler
Homeownership has been proposed as a key factor shaping intergenerational mobility. In this paper, we study one potential channel: that homeownership and housing stability, more generally, could increase human capital formation in children. We study a large, novel housing policy - a homebuyer subsidy for low-income families - in the context of Santiago, Chile. We leverage an arbitrary discontinuity in subsidy assignment to consider the causal impacts on a wide array of primary, secondary, and tertiary education outcomes for children. We find that subsidy receipt significantly improves their grades, class ranking, and achievement test scores while reducing chronic absenteeism. The gains are larger for boys than girls, and we do not find important differences depending on the applicants' characteristics or students' age at application. Additionally, the benefits are more pronounced for larger families, indicating that alleviating overcrowded living conditions may significantly mediate these effects. These effects are not driven by sorting into different schools or changes in neighborhood quality, possibly because awarded families are not moving to different neighborhoods. We find that, early in life, the subsidy increases children’s preschool attendance, and later in life, children graduate high school and attend college at higher rates. Those that begin to work are employed at greater rates as well. In all, we find that homebuyer subsidies are an effective tool to improve the economic fortunes of children from vulnerable families.
Download DraftCo-authors: Nano Barahona, Cahue Dobbin, and Sebastián Otero
We study the impact of a rapid expansion of the online for-profit tertiary education sector in Brazil over the past 15 years on market structure and students’ enrollment. We leverage variation across regions with differential exposure to potential entrants induced by a regulatory reform that decreased the cost of opening online degrees in certain areas of study. We find that online degrees’ entry to local markets expands access to tertiary education but also diverts students from alternative in-person degrees. Increased competition decreases in-person degrees’ market power, which lowers prices but deters entry. We develop and estimate an entry and exit model where institutions choose a bundle of degrees to offer and what tuition fees to charge. We use the model to quantify the effects of the rapid expansion in online education supply on students’ educational choices. We find that, in the absence of online education, the average student would enroll in programs with a 2.9% higher value-added. Students between 18- and 25-years old benefit from the absence of online education, while students above 25 years old are harmed. We find that targeted policies allowing only older cohorts to attend online education can keep young students at in-person degrees, reducing schools’ exit and increasing the potential gains in value-added for all cohorts.
Download DraftCo-authors: Felipe Sepulveda
Amid a growing housing affordability crisis, countries are exploring housing assistance programs to curb rising costs and improve access. A critical factor in assessing these programs is housing supply elasticity, which reflects market responsiveness to demand changes. Leveraging quasi-experimental variation from Chile’s 2011 homeownership subsidy program and detailed administrative data on property transactions from 1998 to 2020, we estimate Santiago’s housing supply elasticity and the effects of the policy on property prices. On average, the results suggest an elasticity of 0.543. We also find that the response of new constructions is twice as large as the conversion of rental units to owner-occupied housing, limiting opportunities for households seeking to transition to homeownership. Finally, we estimate an average effect of 8.87% on housing prices due to the policy, with significant variation across neighborhoods. We conclude that subsidizing housing for low- and middle-income households may not effectively solve the affordability crisis and may disproportionately benefit developers.
Co-authors: Felipe Sepulveda
We study the impact of a performance-pay policy implemented in 2012 in Chile targeted to vulnerable middle and high school students. In particular, we estimate the short-term effects of this policy on grades, attendance, test scores, and college enrollment and the long-term effects by looking labor market outcomes. To estimate the effects of the policy, we leverage the assignation process, which only allows students with a vulnerability score below 99 to receive the transfer. This creates arbitrary cutoffs that we use to estimate a sharp regression discontinuity by comparing students just above and below this threshold. We also use the fact that eligible students receive the reward only if they are in the top 15% or 30% of the class to run another version of the RD, using as running variable the grade percentile, comparing students that are just above the threshold, with the ones just below. This allows us to estimate the subsequent effect of this payment on the students' academic trajectories. Finally, we show the differential impact of the policy depending on the level of competition within their classrooms, given by the fraction of eligible students.
Co-authors: Jorge Fantuzzi, Aberto Sasmay and Felipe Sepulveda
In this report, we evaluate the impact of instant and ultra-accelerated depreciation policies introduced in Chile’s 2014 Tax Reform. Aimed at encouraging investment among micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises, we find very low adoption rates of less than 0.1% for micro and small enterprises and less than 3% for medium-sized firms. Our analysis reveals no significant effects on investment, likely due to low take-up. To improve effectiveness, we recommend that the government increase awareness about the benefits through targeted information campaigns.
Full Report [In Spanish] Policy BriefCo-authors: Felipe Vial and Harrison Wheeler
In this report, we evaluate the impact of a homebuyer subsidy introduced in 2011 in Chile on children’s education outcomes and long-term economic prospects. Our findings indicate that children from subsidy-winning families show significant improvements in school performance, high school completion, and college attendance, with additional positive effects on early employment rates. These gains highlight the role of housing stability in fostering educational success and economic mobility.
Policy BriefPrinciples of Economics (Fall 2018 and Spring 2019)
Mechanism Design
Economics of Institutions
Game Theory
Introduction to Economics
Microeconomics I
Microeconomics II
Industrial Organization
Game Theory
International Macroeconomics
Economical Analysis of the Chilean Experience
Optimization Methods
Accounting I
Microsoft Excel
Email: jfuenzalida@berkeley.edu
Office 524, Evans Hall, UC Berkeley