Journal articles (economics)

• Prioritisation, risk selection, and illness severity in a mixed healthcare system. Journal of Health Economics 104, 2025, article 103072. (joint with P. Olivella). Replication files: Link
• More Powerful Cluster Randomized Control Trials. Economic Development and Cultural Change, 2025, article number 739610. (joint with B. McConnell). STATA ado files: ClusterPowerMax and ClusterCostMin. Also R files but STATA ones are recommended.
• Health systems and health inequalities in Latin America. Oxford Open Economics 4(Supplement_1), 2025, pp. i122–i147. (joint with A. Bancalari, S. Berlinski, G. Buitrago, M. F. García, and D. de la Mata). Prepared for the Latin American and Caribbean Inequality Review.
• Health inequalities in Latin America and the Caribbean: child, adolescent, reproductive, metabolic syndrome and mental health. Oxford Open Economics 4(Supplement_1), 2025, pp. i77–i121. (joint with A. Bancalari, S. Berlinski, G. Buitrago, M. F. García, and D. de la Mata). Prepared for the Latin American and Caribbean Inequality Review.
• Going Beyond Simple Sample Size Calculations: A Practitioner's Guide. Fiscal Studies 46(3), September 2025. (joint with B. McConnell).
• Incentivizing Demand for Supply-Constrained Care: Institutional Birth in India. Review of Economics and Statistics 106(1), January 2024, pp. 102–118. (joint with A. Andrews).
• Breastfeeding and Child Development. American Economic Journal: Applied Economics 14(3), July 2022, pp. 329–66. Large Online Appendix. [Stone Center Blog] (joint with E. Fitzsimons).
• Different Strokes for Different Folks: Experimental Evidence on the Effectiveness of Input and Output Incentive Contracts for Health Care Providers with Varying Skills. American Economic Journal: Applied Economics 13(4), October 2021, pp. 34–69. (joint with M. Mohanan, K. Donato, G. Miller, Y. Truskinovsky).
• Spillovers of Community Based Health Interventions on Consumption Smoothing. Economic Development and Cultural Change 70(4), 2022, pp. 1591–1629. (joint with B. Malde).
• Can Bureaucrats Really Be Paid Like CEOs? School Administrator Incentives for Anemia Reduction in Rural China. Journal of the European Economic Association 18(1), February 2020, pp. 165–201. (joint with R. Luo, G. Miller, S. Sylvia, and S. Rozelle).
• Group Size and the Efficiency of Informal Risk Sharing. The Economic Journal 128(612), July 2018, pp. F575–F608. (joint with E. Fitzsimons and B. Malde).
• Personality Traits and Performance Contracts: Evidence from a Field Experiment Among Maternity Care Providers in India. American Economic Review: Papers and Proceedings 107(5), May 2017, pp. 506–510. (joint with K. Donato, G. Miller, M. Mohanan, and Y. Truskinovsky).
• Nutrition, Information and Household Behavior: Experimental Evidence from Malawi. Journal of Development Economics 122, September 2016, pp. 113–126. (joint with E. Fitzsimons, B. Malde, A. Mesnard). [journal website: PDF Open Access, Replication Files]
• Public Hospital Spending in England: Evidence from National Health Service Administrative Records. Fiscal Studies 37(3–4), 2016, pp. 433–459. (joint with E. Kelly and G. Stoye).
• Should Cash Transfers Be Conditional? Conditionality, Preventive Care, and Health Outcomes. American Economic Journal: Applied Economics 7(2), 2015, pp. 35–52. (joint with O. Attanasio and V. Oppedisano).
• Testing for Asymmetric Information in Private Health Insurance. The Economic Journal 123(567), 2013, pp. 96–130. (joint with P. Olivella). [Download the Data and Code] [journal website] Awarded 2013 Royal Economic Society Prize for the best unsolicited paper published in The Economic Journal in 2013.
• Risk Protection, Service Use, and Health Outcomes under Colombia's Health Insurance Program for the Poor. American Economic Journal: Applied Economics 5(4), 2013, pp. 61–91. (joint with G. Miller and D. Pinto). [journal website] Awarded first place of the Inter American Award for Research on Social Security 2011.
• Community Nurseries and the Nutritional Status of Poor Children: Evidence from Colombia. The Economic Journal 123(571), 2013, pp. 1025–1058. (joint with O. Attanasio and V. di Maro). [journal website]
• Exploiting Subjective Information to Understand Impoverished Children's Use of Health Care. Journal of Health Economics 32(6), 2013, pp. 1194–1204. (joint with Begona Alvarez). [journal website]
• How Complex are the Contracts Offered by Health Plans?. SERIEs (Journal of the Spanish Economics Association) 1(3), 2010, pp. 305–323. (joint with P. Olivella).
• Are Tax Subsidies for Private Medical Insurance Self-financing? Evidence from a Microsimulation Model. Journal of Health Economics 27, 2008, pp. 1285–1298. (joint with A. López-Nicolás). [journal website] Read the comment on the article published by Prof. G. López-Casasnovas (only in Spanish).
• Competition Among Differentiated Health Plans under Adverse Selection. Journal of Health Economics 26(2), pp. 233–250. (joint with P. Olivella). This paper was awarded the prize of best article (ex-aequo) in health economics by the Spanish Health Economics Association in 2007. [journal website]
• Child Health in Rural Colombia. Determinants and Policy Interventions. Economics and Human Biology, Special Issue on Child Health in Latin America, edited by J. R. Behrman and E. Skoufias, 2(3), December 2004, pp. 335–518. (joint with O. Attanasio, L.C. Gómez, and A. Gómez).
• Counts with an Endogenous Dummy Regressor: A Series Expansion Approach. The Econometrics Journal 8(1), June 2005, pp. 1–22. (joint with A. Romeu). Lead article [journal website]
• Structural Estimation of a Principal-Agent Model: Moral Hazard in Medical Insurance. The RAND Journal of Economics 34(4), Winter 2003, pp. 670–693. [journal website]
• Duplicate Coverage and Demand for Health Care. The Case of Catalonia. Health Economics 8(7), November 1999, pp. 579–598. This paper was awarded the second prize of the student competition of the 2nd World Conference of the International Health Economics Association. [journal website]

Journal articles (medical journals)

• Socioeconomic disparities in adult mortality in Latin America. BMJ Global Health 11(1), 2026, article e018400. (joint with G. Buitrago, S. Marinkovic Dal Poggetto, A. Bancalari, S. Berlinski, and D. de la Mata).
• Beyond the individual: Household activity of daily living limitations, urban-rural residence, and mental health. SSM - Mental Health 8, 2025, article 100547. (joint with K. Shartle, J. E. Lansford, A. Collins, A. Mukherji, and M. Mohanan).
• The changing association between pandemic-related stressors and child and adolescent mental health during the waning phase of the COVID-19 pandemic. Scientific Reports 14, 2024, article 25843. (joint with J. Maselko, K. Shartle, J. E. Lansford, A. Collins, A. Mukherji, and M. Mohanan).
• The Irie Classroom Toolbox: A cluster-randomised trial of a universal violence prevention programme in Jamaican preschools. The Lancet Global Health. Forthcoming. (joint with Baker-Henningham, H, Bowers, M, Francis, T, Vera-Hernández, M, and Walker, S).
• The Effects of the Transition from Home-based Childcare to Childcare Centers on Children's Health and Development in Colombia. (joint with R. Bernal, O. Attanasio, X. Pena). Early Childhood Research Quarterly (47), 2nd Quarter 2019, pp. 418–431.
• Evaluation of a social franchising and telemedicine programme and the care provided for childhood diarrhoea and pneumonia, India. Bulletin of World Health Organization 95, 2017, pp. 343–352E. (joint with M. Mohanan, S. Giardili, V. Das, T. Rabin, S. Raj, J. D. Goldhaber-Fiebert, A. Seth, G. Miller, and J. Goldhaber-Fiebert).
• Providers' Knowledge of Diagnosis and Treatment of Tuberculosis using Vignettes: Evidence from Rural Bihar, India. BMJ Global Health 1(4), 2016. (joint with M. Mohanan, J. D. Goldhaber-Fiebert, and S. Giardili).
• Effect Of A Large-Scale Social Franchising And Telemedicine Program On Childhood Diarrhea And Pneumonia Outcomes In India. Health Affairs (Project Hope) 35(10), 2016, pp. 1800–1809. (joint with M. Mohanan, K. S. Babiarz, J. D. Goldhaber-Fiebert, and G. Miller). One of the Editor's Top Ten picks [Link] [Summary of Press Coverage]
• Breast Feeding and the Weekend Effect: An Observational Study. BMJ Open 6(7), 2016. (joint with E. Fitzsimons).
• Irie Classroom Toolbox: A Study Protocol for a Cluster-Randomised Trial of a Universal Violence Prevention Programme in Jamaican Preschools. BMJ Open 6(5), 2016. (joint with Baker-Henningham, H., M., Alderman, H., and Walker, S.).
• Integrating a Parenting Intervention With Routine Primary Health Care: A Cluster Randomized Trial. Pediatrics 166(2), 2015. (joint with S. Chang, S. Grantham-McGregor, C. Powell, F. Lopez-Boo, H. Baker-Henningham, and S. Walker). [journal website]
• Do No Harm: The Know-Do Gap and Quality of Care for Childhood Diarrhea and Pneumonia in Bihar, India. JAMA Pediatrics 169(4), 2015, pp. 349–357. (joint with Manoj Mohanan, Veena Das, Soledad Giardili, Jeremy D. Goldhaber-Fiebert, Tracy L. Rabin, Sunil Raj, Jeremy I. Schwartz, and Aparna Seth). Press coverage: FT, BMJ, Medical Journal of Australia, The Hindu, The Hindu (editorial), Times of India, DW, others (see file).
• Early Childhood Stimulation Benefits Adult Competence and Reduces Violent Behavior. Pediatrics 127(5), 2011, pp. 849–857. (joint with S. Walker, S. Chang, and S. Grantham-McGregor). [journal website]
• Pre- and postnatal arsenic exposure and child development at 18 months of age: a cohort study in rural Bangladesh. International Journal of Epidemiology 39(5), 2010, pp. 1206–1216. (joint with J. Hamadani, S. Grantham-McGregor, F. Tofail, B. Nermell, B. Fangstrom, S. Huda, S. Yesmin, M. Rahman, S. Arifeen, and M. Vahter).

Book chapters and other publications

• Health Inequality: A Tale of Expansion and Fragmentation (joint with S. Berlinski and J. Gagete-Miranda). In Busso, Matías, and Julián Messina (eds), The Inequality Crisis: Latin America and the Caribbean at the Crossroads. Inter-American Development Bank, 2020. https://doi.org/10.18235/0002629.
• Berlinski, Samuel, and Marcos Vera-Hernández. ‘The Economics of Early Interventions Aimed at Child Development’. In Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Economics and Finance. Oxford University Press, 2019. https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190625979.013.545.
• Berlinski, Samuel, and Marcos Vera-Hernández. ‘The Rationale for Interventions to Foster Child Development’. In Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Economics and Finance. Oxford University Press, 2019. https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190625979.013.42.
• The Evaluation of Public Policies (in Spanish). In (eds.) Bages, M., Fernández-Villaverde, J., and Garicano, L. E-book on the Law of Sustainable Economy. Fundacion de Estudios de Economia Aplicada, Madrid, Spain.
• “A Practitioner’s Guide to Evaluating the Impacts of Labor Market Programs”, World Bank Employment Policy Primer, Issue No. 12, December 2009. (joint with E. Fitzsimons). Read a summary in the Governance and Social Development Resource Centre website.
• Evaluating Public Health Interventions without Experiments, (in Spanish), Gaceta Sanitaria 17, 2003. Article requested by the Spanish Association of Health Economics.
• Interactions between Public and Private Health Insurance, (in Spanish), in Casanova (ed.), “Public and Private Interface in Health”. Masson, 2003.
• Microeconometrics and Asymmetric Information: Applications to Health Care Utilisation. Cuadernos de Información Economica No. 804, 2003 (Journal of the Economics Ministry in Spain).