Climent Quintana-Domeque
Climent Quintana-Domeque (Barcelona, 1980) is Professor of Economics at the University of Exeter, a Research Fellow at IZA (Bonn) and a network member of the Human Capital Economic Opportunity Family Inequality working group (Chicago). Climent received his Llicenciatura from Universitat Pompeu Fabra (first ranked in the class of 2002) and completed his PhD in Economics at Princeton University in 2008 under the supervision of Alan Krueger. Climent has taught at the Universitat d'Alacant, where he was Assistant Professor and got his first tenure in 2012, and at the University of Oxford, where he was both Associate Professor and Tutorial Fellow at St Edmund Hall, and got his second tenure in 2017.
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The Effect of Increasing Women's Autonomy on Primary and Repeated Caesarean Sections in Brazil
(with Ines Lee and Victor Hugo de Oliveira).
Caesarean section (C-section) rates continue to rise globally. Yet, there is little consensus about the key determinants of rising C-section rates and the sources of variation in C-section rates across the world. While C-sections can save lives when medically justified, unnecessary surgical procedures can be harmful for women and babies. We show that a state-wide law passed in Sao Paulo (Brazil), which increased women's autonomy to choose to deliver via C-sections even when not medically necessary, is associated with a 3% increase in overall C-section rates. This association was driven by a 5% increase in primary C-sections, rather than repeated C-sections. These findings are notable given the already high C-section rate in Brazil (>55%) and given the likelihood of primary C-section leading to future births being delivered via C-section.