Rafael Carlquist Rabelo de Araujo, a graduate of FGV EPGE’s doctoral program, received the 2023 Wallace E. Oates Outstanding Doctoral Dissertation Award. This award is handed out every year by the Association of Environmental and Resource Economics (AERE), recognizing the best doctoral dissertation in the field of environmental economics. In the three previous years, the prize went to Columbia, Berkeley and Yale alumni.

According to the award committee, Araujo’s dissertation stood out for its notable integration of economic and climate models. The work provides a comprehensive understanding of the connection between deforestation decisions and rainfall patterns. The innovative approach taken by the researcher shows how economic decisions directly influence regional climate factors, in a remarkable achievement at the intersection of economics and the environment.

In Brazil, the dissertation also won the Haralambos Simeonidis Award and received an honorable mention in the 2023 CAPES Dissertation Awards.

Araujo did his master’s and doctorate at FGV EPGE, tutored by Professor Francisco Costa, and worked as a senior analyst at the Climate Policy Initiative Brazil. Following his graduate studies, he was hired by FGV EESP as an assistant professor.