Research

Research agenda

Integrity and procurement analytics. Identifying latent supplier typologies and risk patterns in public procurement to guide audit prioritization when fraud labels are sparse.

Causal inference for reforms. Estimating the effect of anti-corruption and institutional reforms on governance and development outcomes using counterfactual designs.

Corruption and trust. Modeling the mutual causality between corruption experience, corruption perception and institutional confidence.

Oversight analytics. Measuring legislative attention and executive responsiveness through text-as-data analysis of parliamentary information requests.

Peer-reviewed publication

Alencar, E. C. N., & Jackson-Green, B. (2021). Applying Synthetic Control Method to estimate the impact of the Lava Jato operation on the Worldwide Governance Indicators in Brazil. Journal of White-Collar and Corporate Crime. DOI: 10.1177/2631309X211017874

Articles and newsletters

Alencar, E. C. N. (2026, Spring). Evidence-based anti-corruption oversight: stop counting activity, start measuring consequences. The White Collar Times, official newsletter of the American Society of Criminology Division of White-Collar and Corporate Crime.

Under review

Formal Replies, Substantive Evasion: Executive Responsiveness to Parliamentary Oversight Requests in Brazil. Under review at Public Integrity. Dataset: 13,042 request–response pairs, Brazilian Chamber of Deputies, 2019–2024.

Working papers and work in preparation

• Evasion as a Signal: Executive Responsiveness to Parliamentary Oversight Requests as a Diagnostic Tool for State Capture. Working paper proposal for a Journal of Financial Crime special issue.
• Latent Supplier Typologies and Procurement Fraud Risk: Evidence from Brazilian Federal Procurement Microdata. In preparation, Fraud Research Group collaboration track.
• Collusion detection in public procurement: integrating Latent Class Analysis and machine-learning red flags. In preparation.
• Open Innovation for Sustainable Development Goals (Nova Science Publishers). Chapter proposal accepted; chapter in preparation.

Conference papers and presentations

Accepted, forthcoming

Presented

• Formal Replies, Substantive Evasion. American Society of Criminology Annual Meeting, Chicago, November 2026.
• Digital Finance and Cyber Risk Oversight. American Society of Criminology Annual Meeting, Chicago, November 2026.
• The AI-Powered Parliamentary Oversight Auditing System (with Arthur Leite). Extended abstract accepted 20 July 2026; XIV Research and Extension Conference, CEFOR, Chamber of Deputies, 3–4 December 2026.
• Anti-corruption reforms in Brazil, Kenya and Rwanda: assessing the impact on education outcomes (SDG 4). American Society of Criminology Annual Meeting, Washington DC, November 2025.
• Bridging Digital Transformation and Sustainability: overcoming governance challenges for green policy implementation. American Society of Criminology Annual Meeting, Washington DC, November 2025.
• Detecting fraud in price registration systems. 50th National Meeting of Economics (ANPEC), Fortaleza, 2022.
• Allaire, M., & Alencar, E. (2018). Trends in water rate structures to encourage conservation: evidence from California. AGU Fall Meeting, Washington DC.

Theses and dissertations

• PhD dissertation (University of California, Irvine, 2021; degree conferred 18 March 2022). Assessing the potential for detecting fraud in Brazilian public procurement using Latent Class Analysis.
• MA 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.

Policy and practice outputs

• Governança em Tempo Real: Evidência, Integridade e Inteligência Artificial para Reconstruir a Capacidade Pública. Book manuscript in production, 2026.
• The Supreme Court judges one of its own. Analysis of the Brazilian Supreme Court's extraordinary session of 15 September 2026 on Petition 16,662 (Banco Master case), examining whether the Court live-tested its own self-adjudication mechanism, over nearly eight hours, when the person under investigation is one of the Constitution's guardians. Policy brief, 2026.
• From administrative burden to risk-based regulation: latent class analysis and regulatory discontinuities in Latin American and Caribbean public procurement. IDB technical concept note, 2026 (in Spanish).
• Principais achados relacionados aos desembolsos de convênios e patrocínios da Itaipu Binacional. Parliamentary Front for Oversight, Integrity and Transparency (FIT), 2 April 2025.
• The impact of Lava Jato on corruption and trust: evidence from Brazil. Policy brief, 2020.
• Caderno Vozes da Classe Média: Classe Média e Emprego Assalariado. Secretariat of Strategic Affairs, 2013.
• Gestão de pessoas aplicada ao coaching, in Coaching e Mentoring: Foco na Excelência. Sermais, 2014.
• Política industrial, acompanhamento e análise, issues 21, 22, 23 and 24. Institute for Applied Economic Research (Ipea), 2003–2004.

Profiles

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