Research 

We study whether the rise in suburban poverty disproportionately affects Black suburban residents. We build a model of segregation and Tiebout sorting that demonstrates how white residents leaving suburban areas that Black families enter can increase suburban poverty. Examining this link empirically, we construct a shift-share instrument for changes in the Black share of Northern suburbs based on population flows from the Great Migration. We find that an increase in the Black share of the suburban population causes non-black suburban poverty to increase. Investigating mechanisms, we find that wealthier incumbent residents left suburbs that Black residents entered, reducing home prices and inducing lower-income residents to move into the suburbs. Our findings provide another example of destination responses impeding Black Americans’ ability to move to opportunity.  

Draft available here.

(The Great) Migration and those Left Behind (with Gabrielle Grafton)

We study the economic impact that out-migration imposes on those who remain behind and do not migrate. We build a shift-share instrument for the migration rate of Black Americans out of Southern counties during the Great Migration using shocks to manufacturing employment in Northern cities. We address selection into migration using newly-available longitudinal Census data that allows us to analyze changes in outcomes of non-migrating Black residents. Our results indicate that out-migration increases the income of those who do not migrate. This effect is larger for farming occupations, suggesting that changes in local labor supply are an important mechanism. Our results inform policies to encourage migration away from less productive areas.

Migration and Village India (with Kazuki Motohashi and Shunsuke Tsuda)

We study the consequences of increased levels of migration out of rural Indian villages on those who remain in the village and do not migrate. We use two waves of IHDS survey data to construct an instrument for out-migration based on proximity-weighted income growth. We find that those who remain behind experience the practice of untouchability more, and earn less in non-agricultural occupations, as more people migrate from their village. Our results indicate that while rural-urban migration may encourage urban growth and structural transformation, it may encumber the remaining rural population.   

Using Information to Confront Water Pollution in the Mekong Delta (pilot study proposal)

I study whether giving groups of small-scale shrimp farmers in the Mekong Delta of Vietnam access to a tool to measure and share information on water quality in their ponds and increasingly polluted nearby waterways will ameliorate the adverse effects of the water pollution on aquiculture production. Our pilot study indicates that six out of seven groups of farmers have used these devices to record at least one measurement, with a total of 124 measurements recorded in seven weeks. The measurements indicate that salinity levels are frequently outside of the recommended range for five of the six groups of farmers that have recorded salinity measurements. An endline survey in December will investigate how the farmers used these measurements to adapt to the water pollution in their environment. Our findings may inform strategies to adapt to climate-related environmental pollution.

Nonconforming Preferences: Jumbo Mortgage Lending and Large Bank Stress Tests (with Andrew Haughwout, Donald Morgan, Maxim Pinkovskiy, and Wilbert van der Klaauw)

Journal of Money, Credit, and Banking (2024) 

The 2010s saw a profound shift towards jumbo mortgage lending by large banks that are regulated under the Dodd-Frank Act. Using data from the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act, we show that the “jumbo shift” is correlated with being subject to the Comprehensive Capital Analysis and Review (CCAR) stress tests, and that financial regulation caused CCAR-regulated banks to change preference for nonconforming relative to conforming loans of similar size. We discuss potential mechanisms through which regulation could have affected bank incentives.

The expected price of keeping up with the Joneses (with Olivier Armantier, Antonio Filippin, and Luca Nunziata)

 Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization (2022)

Inflation expectations elicited in surveys have been found to exhibit large dispersion across individuals. Although several explanations have been proposed, none fully explain this puzzle. We explore in this paper a new behavioral factor: social comparison. Using original survey data, we find that respondents who feel they are falling behind compared to their peers report significantly and substantially higher inflation expectations. We argue that this result is consistent with an experience based belief formation model in which those unable to “keep up with the Joneses” overweight the high prices of “aspiration” goods they are unable to purchase.

Impact of Second-Parent Migration on Student Academic Performance in Northwest China and its Implications (with Yu Bai, Tong Ru, Yaojiang Shi, Kaleigh Kenny, and Scott Rozelle) 

The Journal of Development Studies (2020)

The migration of hundreds of millions of rural Chinese workers to the city has contributed substantially to China’s economic growth since the beginning of the country’s economic reform in 1978. However, this migration has also led to societal issues, including more than 60 million left-behind children. Empirical studies that seek to measure the impact of being left-behind on academic performance have led to inconsistent results, perhaps because the effects may be different for first-parent migration (migration during the first period of time in which one parent migrates) and second-parent migration (migration when the remaining parent leaves the home). Here we have examined how school performance changes before and after the second parent out-migrates. We use a panel dataset of over 5,000 students from 72 primary schools in rural China. Using a difference-in-difference approach, supported by a placebo test, we find that second-parent migration has statistically significant negative impacts on student performance. Importantly, our data provide convincing evidence that second-parent migration has a more negative impact on academic performance than first-parent migration. Our results have broad implications for China’s future economic growth and inequality.