Corruption, Trust, and Firms’ Access to Finance: Evidence from Brazil

My job market paper focuses on understanding corruption and access to information and finance as important barriers to the creation of new businesses and to the growth of firms in Brazil. Thanks to the use of novel innovation data, I will also be able to analyze whether long-term risky investment such as innovation is hindered by these frictions. The second chapter of my PhD dissertation is based on a randomized controlled trial in Ghana, the goal of which is to estimate the causal impact of access to Internet, smartphones, and virtual social networks on entrepreneurial and innovative behavior. The third and final chapter of my PhD dissertation investigates the relationship between corporate transparency, firm performance, and business networks in the construction sector supply chain in Uganda.