Research

Applied research on integrity, governance, and decision intelligence—designed to be usable by public institutions.

Research agenda

My research focuses on how to make public governance measurable and actionable:

Integrity & procurement analytics: detecting latent risk patterns in public procurement to support audit triage and oversight prioritization.
Causal inference for reforms: estimating whether major institutional reforms shift governance indicators using counterfactual methods.
Corruption and trust: modeling relationships between corruption perceptions/experience and institutional trust using structural modeling approaches.
Oversight analytics (text-as-data): measuring legislative attention and executive responsiveness using large corpora of oversight requests.

1) Public Procurement Integrity

Risk signals, segmentation, and detection strategies when fraud labels are limited.
Methods: Latent Class Analysis; administrative procurement data.

2) Governance Measurement and Causal Inference

Counterfactual designs to evaluate institutional reforms and governance change.
Methods: Synthetic Control Method; panel comparisons.

3) Corruption, Trust, and Institutions

Testing theoretical links between corruption indicators and trust outcomes.
Methods: Structural Equation Modeling; multi-country comparisons.

4) Oversight and Accountability Analytics

How oversight topics diffuse among legislators and whether executive responsiveness differs by topic.
Methods: diffusion models; text matching; response probability/delay metrics.

Featured works

PhD Dissertation (University of California, Irvine | 2021)

Assessing the potential for detecting fraud in the Brazilian public procurement using Latent Class Analysis
What it does: evaluates whether procurement data patterns can signal fraud risk through latent classification, supporting prioritization when ground truth is sparse.
Why it matters: creates an audit/oversight logic that is data-driven and transparent. [PDF]

Peer-reviewed article (Journal of White Collar and Corporate Crime | 2021)

Applying Synthetic Control Method to Estimate the Impact of the Lava Jato Operation on the Worldwide Governance Indicators in Brazil
What it does: applies Synthetic Control to test whether Lava Jato is associated with changes in governance indicators (e.g., control of corruption, rule of law, regulatory quality).
Why it matters: illustrates how to translate governance debates into testable empirical designs.
[PDF]

Master’s Thesis (University of California, Irvine | 2020)

Applying Structural Equation Modeling to Analyze the Mutual Causality between Corruption and Trust and the Impact of Lava Jato: Evidence from Brazil and Mexico
What it does: uses SEM and instrumental-variable logic to assess relationships between corruption indicators and trust, including a Lava Jato-related empirical component.
Why it matters: clarifies what can be inferred—and what cannot—when trust and corruption measures are jointly determined. [PDF]

Additional writings

Alencar, Eduardo C. N. (2025). Anti-Corruption Reforms in Brazil, Kenya, and Rwanda: Assessing the Impact on Education Outcomes (SDG 4). Preliminary paper (conference program). [PDF]

Alencar, E. C. N. (2025). Assessing the Impact of Anti-Corruption Reforms on Governance in Latin America: A Synthetic Control Analysis Including the United States, Mexico, Brazil, and Understudied Countries. 7th Academia against Corruption in the Americas Conference Agenda, Bogotá, Colombia. [PDF]

Alencar, E. (2022). Detectando fraudes nos sistemas de registro de preços. 50º Encontro Nacional de Economia (ANPEC 2022), Fortaleza. [PDF]

Alencar, E. (2020). The Impact of the Lava Jato on Corruption and Trust: Evidence from Brazil. Policy brief. [PDF]

Alencar, E. (2014). “Gestão de pessoas aplicada ao coaching.” In Coaching e Mentoring – Foco na Excelência (Sermais). Book chapter. [PDF]

Governo Federal (Brazil), Presidência da República, Secretaria de Assuntos Estratégicos. (2013). Caderno Vozes da Classe Média: Classe Média e Emprego Assalariado. [PDF]

Alencar, Eduardo C. N. (2008). O Balanced Scorecard (BSC) como instrumento para a implementação da gestão estratégica em organizações públicas: a experiência da Anatel. Monograph (FGV Management). [PDF]

Anatel. (2006). Projeto Micro Recarga no Serviço Móvel Pessoal – SMP. [PDF]

IPEA. (2004). Política industrial, acompanhamento e análise, n. 24 (Dec 2004). [PDF]

IPEA. (2004). Política industrial, acompanhamento e análise, n. 23 (Aug 2004). [PDF]

IPEA. (2004). Política industrial, acompanhamento e análise, n. 22 (Apr 2004). [PDF]

IPEA. (2003). Política industrial, acompanhamento e análise, n. 21 (Dec 2003). [PDF]

(2002). Endnote in A Classroom Guide to the Equilibrium Exchange Rate Model, Economic Issues Journal Articles (Sep 2002). [PDF]

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