Associate Professor
Graduate School of Public and International Affairs
University of Pittsburgh
Email: [email protected]

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I am an applied microeconomist at the Graduate School of Public & International Affairs (GSPIA), University of Pittsburgh.

​Much of my current research is broadly focused on inequality in the United States; some work in this area studies barriers to representation in various settings (e.g., in politics) and also the impacts of representation on mitigating inequality across groups. A second strand of my research considers the role of incentives in the public and nonprofit sectors. 

I am also a co-editor at the Economics of Education Review and director of GSPIA's PhD Program.

Research

Working papers

• "District-based Elections and Multiple Dimensions of Representation: Evidence from the California Voting Rights Act" with Michaela Cushing-Daniels and Brooke Shannon
• "Racial Representation in Local Government and Racial Disparities in Policing" with Xiaohong Wang and Jiangnan Zeng
• "Reduced Flexibility in Voting Differentially Impacts Black Voters" with Noah McKinnie Braun
• "The Effects of Partisan Elections on Political and Policy Outcomes: Evidence from North Carolina School Boards" with Andrew Hill and Breyon Williams
• "Does Competition Deter Women from Positions of Leadership?" with Lise Vesterlund and Randall Walsh 
• "City Councilmember Next Door" with Randall Walsh and Jiangnan Zeng
• ​"How female candidates affect voter turnout" 
• "A Poll Tax by Any Other Name: How African Americans Lost the Right to Vote" with Werner Troesken and Randall Walsh [earlier version: NBER Working Paper No. 18612]  

Publications / accepted papers

• ​“Reconstruction-Era Education and Long-Run Black-White Inequality” with Ethan Schmick, American Economic Journal: Economic Policy (conditionally accepted)
• "How Partisanship in Cities Influences Housing Policy" with Justin de Benedictis-Kessner and Chris Warshaw​​, American Journal of Political Science (2024)
• "Disparate Racial Impacts of Shelby County v. Holder on Voter Turnout" with Steve Billings, Noah Braun, and Ying Shi, Journal of Public Economics (2024)
• ​"Racial and Ethnic Representation in Local Government" with Brian Beach, Tate Twinam, and Randall Walsh [NBER Working Paper No. 25192], American Economic Journal: Economic Policy (2024)
  
• "Physician-Patient Race-Match Reduces Patient Mortality" with Andrew Hill and Lindsey Woodworth, Journal of Health Economics (2023)
• "Paying for what kind of performance? Incentive pay and multitasking in mission-oriented jobs" with Mirco Tonin, Michael Vlassopoulos, and Pun Winichakul, Games & Economic Behavior (2023)
• "Partisan Gerrymandering and Turnout" with Neil Silveus and Carly Urban, Journal of Law & Economics (2023)
  
• "Effects of an electronic health record-based mobility assessment and automated referral for inpatient physical therapy on patient outcomes: A quasi-experimental study" with Chou, Johnson, Euloth, Matcho, Bilderback, and Freburger, Health Services Research (2022)
• "Paying for whose performance? Teacher incentives and the black-white test score gap" with Andrew Hill, Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis (2021)
• "Self-Fulfilling Prophecies in the Classroom" with Andrew Hill, Journal of Human Capital (2021)
• "The effect of school closings on teacher labor market outcomes and teacher effectiveness" with Andrew Hill, Education Finance and Policy (2021)
• "Ethnic diversity and citizens' support for local public good provision: Evidence from California parcel tax elections" with Crystal Zhan, Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization (2020)
• "The impacts of performance pay on teacher effectiveness and retention: Does teacher gender matter?" with Andrew Hill, Journal of Human Resources (2020)
• "A teacher who knows me: The academic benefits of repeat student-teacher matches" with Andrew Hill, Economics of Education Review (2018)
• ​"How do voters matter? Evidence from US Congressional redistricting" with Randall Walsh [NBER Working Paper No. 22526], Journal of Public Economics (2018)
• "Does partisan affiliation impact the distribution of spending? Evidence from state governments' expenditures on education" with Andrew Hill, Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization (2017)
• "Political Participation in a Violent Society:  Lynching and Turnout in the Post-Reconstruction South" with Werner Troesken and Randall Walsh, Journal of Development Economics (2017)
• "Wolves in sheep's clothing: Is nonprofit status used as a signal of quality?" with Carol Propper and Sarah Smith, Journal of Health Economics (2017)
• "Gridlock: Ethnic diversity in government and public good provision" with Brian Beach, American Economic Journal: Economic Policy (2017)
• "Too much information? An experiment on communication and cooperation", Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (2017) [Special issue on "Experiments in charitable giving", edited by List, Price, & Samek] ​
• "Business as usual: Politicians with business experience, government finances, and policy outcomes" with Brian Beach, Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization (2016)
• "​Education’s gambling problem: Earmarked lottery revenues and charitable donations to education", Economic Inquiry (2015) 
• "The supply & demand of motivated labor: When should we expect to see nonprofit wage gaps?" Labour Economics (2015)
• "Wallflowers: Experimental evidence of reputation avoidance" with Sera Linardi, Management Science (2014)