Sebastian Olascoaga Email & Phone Number

Boston, Massachusetts, United States

Major project: Analyze two large RCTs that sought to understand the impact of increasing the saliency of homes' localized climate risk by getting it to people when they need it in a useful way.- The first one explored a three-month randomized controlled trial involving 17.5 million Redfin.com users, half of whom had access to First Street Foundation's Flood Factor scores (treatment group) and half of which did not (control group).- The second one analyzed a four-treatment arm randomized controlled trial involving the whole population of Redfin.com users to understand the impact of ClimateCheck's wildfire, heat, storm, and heat scores on homebuyers' decision-making.

Explore the relationship between climate change, extreme weather events, and the housing market. My main project found that America’s disaster-prone areas are becoming more populous as new residents move in. During my internship, I also helped design two randomized controlled trials that I analyzed in my next year's internship.

Mexico City Area, Mexico

Economic Planning Unit Direct and lead a team of junior researchers focusing on topics such as income inequality (and how fiscal policies can help achieve redistributive objectives); minimum wage; income and socioeconomic mobility; distributional national accounts; the pension system; tax and social policies; poverty programs, among other topics. The output of these analyses was presented to the Chief Economist and the Deputy Ministers of Finance to be considered for potential public policies.Other responsibilities included providing analyses and advice on international and national economic policy matters and potential public policies. Developed contingency plans for extreme policy scenarios such as NAFTA’s termination; economic global/national recessions, and national/international economic crises, among others.In charge of providing and identifying potential economic and financial threats to the national and international economic and financial markets. These were discussed at the Financial System Stability Council (CESF). The members of the Council are Mexico’s Minister and Deputy Ministers of Finance, Mexico’s Governor and Deputy Governors of the Central Bank and Mexico’s central regulatory figures.Designed and created a periodic macro and microeconomic analysis and point of view of the Economic Planning Unit. It included various reports and studies from international and national macroeconomic indicators; financial markets; monetary and fiscal indicators; tail risks and economic and fiscal forecasts.

Paris Area, France

Research and project assistant for the an RCT (jointly organized by PSE, IPA, World Bank, EDUCARE and IRC) based in Uganda that analyzed the role of information dissemination regarding new technologies and more efficient agricultural practices, and, the potential bottlenecks extension services might face in their role of bridging the distance between the research institutions and the local farmers. Research assistant for J-Pal affiliated professors Karen Macours and Luc Behaghel. Cleaned and analyzed the baseline dataset, merged data, ensured data quality, and run the first analyses.

Paris Area, France

Conducted research about the labor market impacts of lifestyle risk factors and associated chronic diseases (e.g.: obesity, smoking and hazardous drinking), in terms of employment opportunities, wages, productivity, sick leave, early retirement and receipt of disability benefits. Contributed to a program analyzing the impact of “fat taxes” on associated chronic diseases, labor market outcomes, market distortions and tax collection.

Paris Area, France

Research consultant for a Randomized Controlled Trial (RCT) based in Liberia focused on evaluation investigating whether being part of a mentorship and life skills program, “Sisters of Success,” during early adolescence improved outcomes for girls in Liberia’s capital city, Monrovia. https://www.poverty-action.org/study/sisters-success-mentoring-and-girls%E2%80%99-groups-liberia

Co-authored and conducted research from a research agenda focused on food security, migration, chronic diseases and labor market outcomes. Junior researcher under the direction of professors Mireya Vilar (Universidad Iberoamericana) and Arturo Bustamante (UCLA). Supervised and lead the team (undergraduate students) that was in charge of collecting the data in the field and the database creation. The main outputs of the research agenda were the publication of three peer-reviewed papers on international and national journals. Spearheaded donor reporting and managed project budgetsInstructor (Summer 2013) of the Statistical Analysis using Stata Division of Health, Political Science and Economics.

Doctor Of Philosophy - Phd, Urban Economics And Policy

Activities and Societies: MIT Presidential Fellow. Member of the Graduate Housing Working Group during the years 2020-2021 and 2021-2022.

Master'S Degree, Applied Economics - Public Policy And Development, Magna Cum Laude

Jointly organized by ENS (École Normale Supérieure), EHESS (École des hautes études en sciences sociales) and École des Ponts ParisTech..

Bachelor'S Degree, Economics

Graduated with the highest score in all Mexico on the mandatory bachelors’ graduation examination of economics (CENEVAL-Economics-EGEL).