Fernanda Leite Lopez de Leon is Senior Lecturer in Economics. She gained her PhD in Economics at Cornell University. Previously, she has worked at the University of East Anglia, before joining the University of Kent in 2014.
My personal webpage is here: https://sites.google.com/site/fernandalldeleon/.
Fernanda is the School's Eastern ARC Representative.
Details on Fernanda's research can also be found on her personal website.
Campos, R., Lopez de Leon, F. and McQuillin, B. (2018). Lost in the Storm: The Academic Collaborations that Went Missing in Hurricane Isaac. The Economic Journal [Online]:995-1018. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1111/ecoj.12566.
By exploiting the cancellation of the 2012 American Political Science Association Annual Meeting, we investigate the role of conferences in facilitating academic collaboration. We assembled datasets comprising 17,467 academics, and in difference-in-differences analysis we find that the conference cancellation led to a decrease in individuals' likelihood of co-authoring an article with another attendant by sixteen percent. Moreover, collaborations formed among attendants of (occurring) conferences are associated with more successful co-publications: an effect which is sharpest for teams that are new or non-collocated. Conferences seem to de-cluster the co-authorship network. Altogether, our findings demonstrate the importance of conferences in scientific production.
Kim, S. and Lopez de Leon, F. (2018). In-group and Out-group Biases in the Marketplace: A Field Experiment during the World Cup. Oxford Economic Papers [Online]. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1093/oep/gpy054.
We investigate the effects of group identity on discrimination by conducting an audit study in electronics markets in São Paulo, Brazil during the 2014 Brazil World Cup (WC). We manipulated buyers' group membership, by making them wear shirts of national football teams, and exploit the outcomes of the WC matches, which arguably affected the salience of sellers' group identity. Although we find that foreigners are overcharged, we do not detect discrimination against buyers wearing a rival team shirt. In contrast, we do detect in-group market favouritism (i.e., lower prices) towards buyers wearing the Brazil shirt when Brazil had won a match in the very recent past. Our analysis rejects the explanation that sellers' behaviour were always motivated by economic profits. Instead, the results indicate taste-based discrimination (Becker, 1957) and shed light on the ways in which in-group and out-group biases occur in market outcomes.
Leon, F. and McQuillin, B. (2018). The Role of Conferences on the Pathway to Academic Impact: Evidence from a Natural Experiment. Journal of Human Resources [Online]. Available at: https://dx.doi.org/10.3368/jhr.55.1.1116-8387R.
We provide evidence for the effectiveness of conferences in promoting academic impact, by exploiting the cancellation - due to "Hurricane Isaac" - of the 2012 American Political Science Association Annual Meeting. We assembled a dataset of 29,000 articles and quantified conference effects, using difference-in-differences regressions. Within four years of being presented at the conference, an article's likelihood of becoming cited increases by five percentage points. We decompose the effects by authorship and provide an account of the underlying mechanisms. Overall, our findings point to the role of short term face-to-face interactions in the formation and dissemination of scientific knowledge.
Campos, C., Hargreaves Heap, S. and Leon, F. (2017). The political influence of peer groups: experimental evidence in the classroom. Oxford Economic Papers [Online]. Available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oep/gpw065.
People who belong to the same group often behave alike. Is this because people with similar preferences naturally associate with each other or because group dynamics cause individual preferences and/or the information that they have to converge? We address this question with a natural experiment. We find no evidence that peer political identification affects individual identification. But we do find that peer engagement affects political identification: a more politically engaged peer group encourages individual political affiliation to move from the extremes to the centre.
Leon, F. (2016). Does Forced Voting Result in Political Polarization? Public Choice [Online]:1-18. Available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11127-016-0318-7.
This paper estimates the effects of the compulsory voting laws on individuals´ political orientations though a regression discontinuity framework. The identification comes from Brazil´s dual voting system – voluntary and compulsory – whose exposure is determined based on citizens' dates of birth. Using self-collected data, we find that compulsory voting has sizable effects on individuals´ political preferences, making them more likely to identify with a political party and to become oriented towards ideological extremes.
Leon, F. (2016). Endorse or Not to Endorse: Understanding the Determinants of Newspapers' Likelihood of Making Political Recommendations. Scottish Journal of Political Economy [Online]. Available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/sjpe.12098.
This article investigates the determinants of newspapers' provision for political opinion. I empirically examine the role of newspapers' political preferences and market competition on newspapers' decision to make endorsements. Regression results suggest that market competition turns newspapers more likely to make endorsements. Results from a simple model show that newspapers' ideology determine their endorsements, making partisan papers more likely to make political recommendations and endorse challengers than non-partisan newspapers.
Leon, F. and Rizzi, R. (2014). A Test for the Rational Ignorance Hypothesis: Evidence from a Natural Experiment in Brazil. American Economic Journal: Economic Policy [Online] 6:380-398. Available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1257/pol.6.4.380.
This paper tests the rational ignorance hypothesis by Downs (1957). This theory predicts that people do not acquire costly information to educate their votes. We provide new estimates for the effect of voting participation by exploring the Brazilian dual voting system- voluntary and compulsory- whose exposure is determined by citizens' date of birth. Using a fuzzy RD approach and data from a self-collected survey, we find no impact of voting on individuals' political knowledge or information consumption. Our results corroborate Downs' predictions and refute the conjecture by Lijphart (1997) that compulsory voting stimulates civic education.
Leon, F. (2013). The Tuesday Advantage of Politicians Endorsed by American Newspapers. The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy [Online] 13:865-886. Available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/bejeap-2012-0043.
This article documents the electoral advantage of candidates who have a newspaper endorsement published on Election Day compared to other endorsed candidates. I provide evidence that this advantage is not driven by a selection effect, suggesting that it is instead explained by readers deciding how to vote based on endorsements read on Election Day. Moreover, candidates who have a different political orientation from their endorsing newspapers benefit more from this endorsement than other candidates. These results are based on a newly-compiled dataset matching county-level data of 826 endorsed candidates'election results with newspaper and county characteristics.
Fernanda's main research interests are applied econometrics, political economy and behavioural economics. Her current work focuses on economics of science and market place discrimination.
Details on Fernanda's research can be found on her personal website.
de Leon, Fernanda L. L. and Ben McQuillin (2014). "The Role of Conferences on the Pathway to Academic Impact: Evidence from a Natural Experiment", Studies in Economics 1408, School of Economics, University of Kent.