INTRODUCTION – This paper estimates the effects of an educational program that lengthen the high school day on the homicide rates of 15-19 years olds. The state government converted existing 5 hours high schools into 10 hours. Starting in 2004, the expansion of the program occurred over several years, and in 2014 nearly 40% of high school enrollment were in these full-day schools. We use the staggered adoption of the program to implement a difference in differences with multiple periods of time. Our estimates indicate the program reduced the municipal homicide rates by 12 percentage points, which translates into a 30-50% reduction in the average homicide rates. The results are robust to placebo tests with different age ranges and the addition of a never treated control group. This paper contributes to the scarce literature of potential interventions to reduce homicides among juveniles, especially in developing countries where researchers have pointed out that a large number of homicides among males and youth is an important public health problem.
Texto para Discussão n. 20
Does Increasing Public Spending in Health Improve Health? Lessons from a Constitutional Reform in Brazil
Our results contribute to the literature by providing one of the first wellidentified causal parameters of the relationship between public spending in health and health outcomes