Lab Associates Professors Isabela Munevar and Marcela Mello participated in the LACEA 2025 Annual Meeting, held from November 20–22 at the Federal University of Pernambuco (UFPE) in Recife, Brazil. The gathering brought together economists, researchers, and policymakers from across Latin America for three days of academic exchange and debate.
During the academic program, Isabela Munevar presented the study “Catholic schools and student performance: Evidence from Chile’s school-admission lottery”, offering empirical insights into how school type influences student outcomes within the Chilean educational context.
Marcela Mello presented her research “Religious Mayors, Teenage Pregnancy, and Sexual Education in Schools”, which investigates the impact of electing Pentecostal-affiliated mayors on teenage pregnancy rates and access to sexual education in public schools. By analyzing close mayoral elections in Brazil, the study finds that municipalities where Pentecostal-affiliated candidates narrowly won experienced a 15% increase in teenage births, driven by a reduction in sexual education activities in municipal schools—an area directly influenced by mayoral authority through the appointment of school principals. No similar effect was observed in state-run schools, where mayoral influence is limited.
Throughout the event, participants engaged in keynote lectures, invited sessions, and thematic paper discussions, reinforcing the Annual Meeting’s role as a key space for economic analysis and research in Latin America.
