Housing affordability and economic well-being: evidence from California
I study the financial effects of modern rent control and how residential turnover shapes who captures those benefits over time. Using linked credit and parcel data in California and exploiting construction-year eligibility in a regression discontinuity design, I show that rent control improves incumbent tenants' medium-run financial outcomes but increases turnover, causing benefits to gradually shift toward higher-socioeconomic-status households.
Quantifying specific and systemic factors in the Black-White wealth gap in the United States (with Hamidreza Habibi, Rongchen Liu, Anirban Sanyal, and Nirvikar Singh). Journal of Economics, Race, and Policy, 1-23, (2024).
Using the 2016 Survey of Consumer Finances, Blinder-Oaxaca decompositions and quantile regressions, we show that measured factors such as education, occupation, inheritance, homeownership, and asset ownership explain only part of the Black-White wealth gap. The results point to a large role for structural or systemic factors, with racial disparities persisting across the wealth distribution.
The rise of corporate landlords (with Grace Gu and Jeremy West)
We study how the expansion of corporate ownership in U.S. single-family housing markets affects household financial outcomes and residential mobility. Using property-level ownership records linked to household financial data, we examine how greater corporate presence changes housing-market conditions and the financial well-being and mobility of local residents.
Financial incentives and pandemic performance: Evidence from US nursing homes (with Hamidreza Habibi and Ananya Pimpley)
We study how performance-based payments affected COVID-19 outcomes in U.S. nursing homes. Focusing on the Quality Incentive Program, which tied facility payments to infection prevention and mortality performance, we use facility-level nursing home data and an event-study difference-in-differences framework to estimate dynamic effects on infections, deaths, and related quality outcomes.
Public goods, residential sorting and credit (with David Schonholzer and Jeremy West)
We study how households respond to local public-good investments through residential mobility and credit behavior. Using California ballot-measure data linked to school district finance data and consumer credit geographies, we exploit close school bond elections and the staggered timing of successful measures to estimate effects on school capital spending, sorting, and household financial outcomes.
Local candidates and residential sorting (with Peter Christensen, David Schonholzer and Jeremy West)
We study whether descriptive representation in local office affects residential mobility. Using California local election data, candidate-race classifications constructed from multiple administrative and name-based sources, and random ballot order as an instrument for candidate success, we estimate how electing a co-racial local candidate changes households’ location choices.
Does insurance substitute for credit? (with Grace Gu, Qianping Ren, Jeremy West, and Rongjin Zhang)
We study how households adjust insurance coverage and financial behavior in response to changing disaster risk and insurance prices. Using flood and wildfire insurance settings, including variation from NFIP Risk Rating 2.0 and California insurance-market disruptions after wildfires, we examine whether insurance access changes borrowing, liquidity, nonrenewals, and migration after major disaster exposure.
Consumer behavior and nutritional labeling: evidence from Argentina's front-of-package regulation
I evaluate the impact of Argentina’s 2021 front-of-package warning-label law on consumer purchasing behavior. The project links product-level nutritional information from SIFEGA to high-frequency retail scanner data from Argentine supermarkets and uses the law’s nutrient-specific thresholds for sugar, sodium, fats, and calories to estimate labeling effects through a regression discontinuity design.
Innovation and financial constraints in India (with Nirvikar Singh and Ananyo Brahma)
We study how financial constraints shape firm innovation in India using the World Bank Enterprise Survey panel. Linking firms observed across the 2014 and 2022 waves, we examine product, process, and R&D-related innovation outcomes alongside detailed measures of credit access, financing sources, collateral, and loan applications, exploiting variation in local financial access to estimate causal effects.
UCSC Applied Microeconomics Workshop, Santa Cruz, CA, 2024-2026
Russell Sage Foundation / W.E. Upjohn Institute Dissertation Research Grant, 2025
UCSC Economics Department Dissertation Research Grant, 2025
Media coverage in USA TODAY, 2025
Media coverage in UCSC Social Sciences Campus News, 2025
W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research Mini-Conference, Kalamazo, MI, 2026
All California Labor Economics Conference, Berkeley, CA, 2026
20th North American Meeting of the Urban Economics Association, Chicago, IL, 2026