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Marcos A. Rangel

Marcos A. Rangel CV

Associate Professor in the Sanford School of Public Policy
Sanford School of Public Policy
marcos.rangel@duke.edu
Box 90312, Durham, NC 27708
262 Rubenstein Hall, Box 90312, Durham, NC 27708
CV

Selected Publications

First Impressions Matter: Evidence from Elementary School Teachers

Journal Article Journal of Human Resources · January 1, 2026 We study the empirical relevance of first impressions in the context of education. We find that teachers who begin their careers in classrooms with large White-Black incoming score differentials carry negative views into evaluations of future cohorts of Bl ... Full text Cite

A Note From the New Editors of Demography

Journal Article Demography · January 1, 2026 Full text Cite

Property dynamics and displacement: How multifamily sales, renovations, and demolitions influence moves for children

Journal Article Journal of Urban Affairs · January 1, 2026 Dynamic changes to multifamily properties like sales, renovations, and demolitions are theoretically linked with housing displacement, and emergent research finds these changes are associated with increased prevalence of eviction filings. However, how dyna ... Full text Cite

A Note From the New Editors of Demography.

Journal Article Demography · August 2025 Full text Cite

Is Voting Transformative? Expanding and Meta-Analyzing the Evidence

Journal Article Political Behavior · September 1, 2023 Voting is the foundational act of democracy. While thousands of studies have treated voting as a dependent variable, comparatively little research has studied voting as an independent variable. Here we flip the causal arrow and explore the effect of exogen ... Full text Cite

Learners in cities: Agglomeration and the spatial division of cognition

Journal Article Regional Science and Urban Economics · January 1, 2023 This paper uses new psychometric data to reconsider the composition of cities, the role of sorting in urban learning, and the generation of agglomeration economies more generally. The analysis establishes that individuals in large cities tend to have great ... Full text Cite

Health and the Megacity: Urban Congestion, Air Pollution, and Birth Outcomes in Brazil.

Journal Article International journal of environmental research and public health · January 2022 We studied the health effects of economic development in heavily urbanized areas, where congestion poses a challenge to environmental conditions. We employed detailed data from air pollution and birth records around the metropolitan area of São Paulo, Braz ... Full text Cite

Means-Tested Safety Net Programs and Hispanic Families: Evidence from Medicaid, SNAP, and WIC.

Journal Article The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science · July 2021 Hispanic families have historically used means-tested assistance less than high-poverty peers, and one explanation for this may be that anti-immigrant politics and policies are a barrier to program participation. We document the participation of Hispanic c ... Full text Cite

Heightened immigration enforcement impacts US citizens' birth outcomes: Evidence from early ICE interventions in North Carolina.

Journal Article PloS one · January 2021 We examine how increased Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) activities impacted newborn health and prenatal care utilization in North Carolina around the time Section 287(g) of the Immigration and Nationality Act was first being implemented within t ... Full text Cite

Does voting have upstream and downstream consequences? Regression discontinuity tests of the transformative voting hypothesis

Journal Article Journal of Politics · October 1, 2020 Voting is a central pillar of political science research; indeed, scholars have long addressed questions like, “Who votes?,” “Why do people vote?,” and “What interventions increase voting?” However, only a few have considered whether voting changes adjacen ... Full text Cite

Brazil's Missing Infants: Zika Risk Changes Reproductive Behavior.

Journal Article Demography · October 2020 Zika virus epidemics have potential large-scale population effects. Controlled studies of mice and nonhuman primates indicate that Zika affects fecundity, raising concerns about miscarriage in human populations. In regions of Brazil, Zika risk peaked month ... Full text Cite

Decision-Making in Complex Households

Journal Article · January 2020 Cite

Decision-Making in Complex Households

Journal Article · November 2019 Cite

AGRICULTURAL FIRES AND HEALTH AT BIRTH

Journal Article Review of Economics and Statistics · October 1, 2019 Fire has long served as a tool in agriculture, but the practice’s link with economic activity has made its health consequences difficult to study. Drawing on data from satellite-based fire detection systems, air monitors, and vital records in Brazil, we st ... Full text Cite

Early patterns of skill acquisition and immigrants' specialization in STEM careers.

Journal Article Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · January 2019 We provide empirical evidence of immigrants' specialization in skill acquisition well before entering the US labor market. Nationally representative datasets enable studying the academic trajectories of immigrant children, with a focus on high-school cours ... Full text Cite

Economic Assimilation and Skill Acquisition: Evidence From the Occupational Sorting of Childhood Immigrants.

Journal Article Demography · April 2017 We study the economic assimilation of childhood immigrants to the United States. The linguistic distance between English and the predominant language in one's country of birth interacted with age at arrival is shown to be closely connected to occupational ... Full text Cite

Agricultural Fires and Infant Health

Journal Article · December 2016 Cite

Is Parental Love Colorblind? Human Capital Accumulation within Mixed Families

Journal Article Review of Black Political Economy · June 1, 2015 Studies have shown that differences in wage-determinant skills between blacks and whites emerge during a child’s infancy, highlighting the roles of parental characteristics and investment decisions. Exploring the genetics of skin-color and models of intrah ... Full text Cite

On the blurring of the color line: Wages and employment for black males of different skin tones

Journal Article Review of Economics and Statistics · March 1, 2015 We evaluate the role skin color plays in earnings and employment for black males in the NLSY97. By applying a novel, scaled measure of skin tone to a nationally representative sample and by estimating the evolution of labor market differentials over time, ... Full text Cite

Racial Discrimination in Grading: Evidence from Brazil

Journal Article American Economic Journal Applied Economics · January 1, 2015 We investigate whether racial discrimination in the form of biased assessment of students is prevalent within Brazilian schools. Evidence is drawn from unique administrative data pertaining to eighth-grade students and educators. Holding constant performan ... Full text Cite

Racial achievement gaps in another America: Discussing schooling outcomes and affirmative action in Brazil

Chapter · November 1, 2013 A negative association between African ancestry and measures of socioeconomic success in regions colonized by Europeans can be considered an empirical regularity across the social sciences. In the USA, Brazil, and South Africa, for example, the intense tra ... Full text Cite

Family networks and school enrolment: Evidence from a randomized social experiment

Journal Article Journal of Public Economics · April 1, 2010 We present evidence on whether and how a household's behavior is influenced by the presence and characteristics of its extended family. Using data from the PROGRESA program in Mexico, we exploit information on the paternal and maternal surnames of heads an ... Full text Cite

Consumption Smoothing and Marriage

Scholarly Edition · 2010 There is a large role for moves by women at the time of marriage in explaining migration in developing countries, in particular in rural areas. We explore the relations between this mobility and risk diversification and consumption smoothing strategies amo ... Cite

Village economies and the structure of extended family networks

Scholarly Edition · January 1, 2009 This paper documents how the structure of extended family networks in rural Mexico relates to the poverty and inequality of the village of residence. Using the Hispanic naming convention, we construct within-village extended family networks in 504 poor rur ... Full text Cite

INSURANCE, INVESTMENT, AND THE EXTENDED FAMILY

Scholarly Edition · 2009 human capital investment. ... Cite

Alimony rights and intrahousehold allocation of resources: Evidence from Brazil

Journal Article Economic Journal · July 1, 2006 Can family policy affect well-being of individuals without altering the resources available to their families? This article examines the extension of alimony rights and obligations to cohabiting couples in Brazil. For women in intact relationships, alimony ... Full text Cite