About
Lucas Poli is an MPhil/PhD candidate in Health Policy and Health Economics in the Department of Health Policy. His doctoral research examines how institutions and environmental conditions shape water quality and safety, and how these affect child health in Latin America.
His current projects study this question in three settings: a capacity-building programme for community water providers in rural Peru; the effect of upstream deforestation on the health of children living downstream in the Brazilian Amazon; and the spillover effects of deforestation enforcement on water quality monitoring and child health. His main interests lie in applied microeconomics, at the intersection of environmental policy, water safety and child health, and in the use of remote sensing data in economic research.
Lucas holds a BSc in Political Science and Economics from the University of São Paulo and the Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo, and an MSc in Political Economy from the LSE. Following his MSc, he worked as an economist researcher in the Knowledge team at the Inter-American Development Bank in Washington, DC, where he applied causal inference methods to evaluate the impact of water and sanitation policies and co-authored research papers and policy reports on water economics. He also worked as a Research Assistant in the Policing and Crime Research Group at the Centre for Economic Performance, where he contributed to research using applied microeconomics to understand the causes, consequences, and prevention of crime.
Dissertation supervisors:
Dr Ranjeeta Thomas, Dr Joan Costa-i-Font, Dr Ilias Kyriopoulos
Working Papers
- Poli, L. L., Couleau, A., Pérez Urdiales, M., & Tojal Ramos Dos Santos, C. (2026). Beyond Violations: Measuring Compliance in Drinking Water Regulation. doi:10.18235/0014444
Policy Report
- Couleau, A., Poli, L. L., & Pérez Urdiales, M. (2025). Safeguarding the Sip: Drinking Water Quality Regulation, Monitoring and Surveillance in Latin America and the Caribbean. doi:10.18235/0013910
Work in Progress
- The Educational Costs of Drinking Water Contamination (with M. Pérez Urdiales, B. Couto Ribeiro, and M. S. O. Gonçalves).