About
Kelly Santos joined the Social Policy Department as an LSE Fellow in 2026.
Her research lies at the intersection of labour economics, gender economics, and political economy. Her work examines topics such as gender inequalities in labour markets, the role of social norms and household dynamics in shaping economic outcomes, and the effects of public policies on inequality. She combines large administrative and survey datasets with applied microeconometric methods.
She is currently working on projects examining gender gaps in careers, unpaid household work, and the long term effects of job displacement.
Before joining LSE, she was a Postdoctoral Researcher at Insper, where she was affiliated with the Fundação Lemann Chair. She graduated in Economics from the São Paulo School of Economics at Fundação Getulio Vargas (FGV), and a BA in Economics from the University of São Paulo (USP). During her doctoral studies, she was a visiting researcher at the University of Georgia (USA).
Publications
- Political Accountability and Bureaucratic Selection (with Antonio León) — Journal of Public Economics, 2026
- Seeds of Disparity: The Gender Land Divide from Brazil’s Agricultural Transition (with Bruna Borges, Francisco Costa and Rafael Araujo) — Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, 2025
- Does It Matter Which Top Institution You Choose? A Case Study of Brazilian Graduate Admissions (with Fernanda Estevan) — Journal of Human Capital, 2025