Rodrigo Sánchez Sienra

rodrigo [dot] sanchez [at] unil [dot] ch (professional)

sanchez8rodrigo [at] gmail [dot] com (personal)

Fribourg, Switzerland

Welcome! I’m a PhD candidate at the IDHEAP, University of Lausanne.

I use randomized controlled trials, survey experiments, and other causal inference methods to study immigration and integration, inequality, and education policy. I am interested in how policy interventions shape the integration of migrants and refugees, and in how the design of school systems shapes inequality and public attitudes toward it.

I am a Research Affiliate at the Immigration Policy Lab (ETH Zürich/Stanford), where I previously spent two years as a Pre-Doctoral Fellow (2021–2023). I hold an MA in Economics from Central European University (2020) and a BA in Economics from Kansas State University (2018).

Outside research, I am an amateur cyclist who (over)analyzes his own training data; more under Beyond Research.

News

October 2026	Our article Asylum Granted was accepted for publication in World Development. Our article Who likes tracking? appeared in the Journal of European Social Policy.
June 2026	I presented Who Likes Tracking? at the EPSS Annual Conference in Belfast.
January 2026	I presented my work on the local welcoming of refugee children in Switzerland at the Swiss Political Science Association Annual Congress in Zürich.
November 2025	Our article Who deserves student finance? appeared in the Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies.
January 2025	I received a LIVES Young Scholar Grant to field a survey of Swiss teachers’ education policy preferences.
June 2024	Our article Cash-Based Interventions Improve Multidimensional Integration Outcomes of Venezuelan Immigrants appeared in World Development.
February 2024	I presented my thesis project at the LIVES Centre’s doctoral workshop at the University of Geneva.
January 2024	We published Home for Good?, our report for UNHCR on the obstacles facing refugees and asylum seekers in Greece.

Selected Publications

Who likes tracking? Evidence on institutional feedback in education policy

with Flavia Fossati

Journal of European Social Policy, 2026

Abstract Link to paper Preprint Replication

Education is recognized as a core component of the welfare state, yet we know little about how existing institutional arrangements shape public support for education policies. We test policy feedback theory in compulsory education, a policy domain where empirical evidence is still limited. Drawing on 4,382 Swiss citizens from eight cantons, we field an innovative visual vignette experiment using directed graphs that mirror official schematics of school structures. Respondents rate their support (0–10 scale) for fictitious education systems varying across seven policy dimensions that affect educational inequality. We focus on tracking, the fundamental structuring principle of education systems, and find that, first, tracking is indeed the most consequential attribute, raising support by 1.05 points. Respondents exposed to tracking in their own canton assign an additional 0.53 points to tracked systems, which is consistent with self-reinforcing familiarity feedback, as they show higher levels of support for the visible features of the system they live under. Second, support for tracking does vary by income, education, beliefs, and values while at the same time remaining positive across all subgroups. These patterns reflect boundary conditions of the familiarity channel rather than separate mechanisms. Third, other institutional features have comparatively modest effects, if any. Our results highlight citizens’ attachment to familiar policy designs and its implications for education reform, with broader implications for the study of education as social policy.
Cash-Based Interventions Improve Multidimensional Integration Outcomes of Venezuelan Immigrants

with Achim Ahrens, Marine Casalis and Dominik Hangartner

World Development, 2024

Abstract Link to paper

Since 2015, over 7 million Venezuelans have been forced to leave their homes, seeking refuge predominantly in neighboring countries across Latin America and the Caribbean. The displacement is typically accompanied by vulnerability and marginalization, yet there is a scarcity of actionable evidence on how to alleviate poverty among immigrants and refugees and facilitate their economic, political, and social integration. This study evaluates the impact of a cash-based intervention (CBI) on multidimensional integration outcomes of highly vulnerable Venezuelan immigrants, predominantly women, residing in Peru. Utilizing an original panel survey of beneficiaries and the staggered rollout of the program, which provided a one-time payment of 760 soles (approximately 190 USD or 74% of the monthly minimum wage), we estimate that the CBI increased the IPL-24 index – an overall measure of immigrant integration capturing several dimensions – by at least 0.12 standard deviations. Moreover, the CBI boosted self-employment by 2 percentage points and raised the intention to emigrate from Peru by 1.2 percentage points. Additionally, our heterogeneity analysis reveals that the benefits of the fixed-amount cash payment diminish significantly with the size of the household. We discuss how these findings inform the design of future CBI programs aimed at supporting vulnerable immigrant and refugee families.