Working Papers

• “Human Capital and Industrial Reallocation” [Job Market Paper]
  Under Review
  Abstract

  The skill composition of the local workforce is pivotal to the location and expansion of industries. Yet, its role in reshaping industrial structure remains less understood, since workforce skills and local production patterns evolve jointly. This paper studies how exogenous shifts in county human capital distribution affect employment and establishment shares of industries with different workforce education profiles. I construct education-specific instruments using a two-step ancestry-based strategy that predicts county ancestry stocks from historical origin-by-destination immigration patterns over 1860-2010 and maps them into working-age populations by educational attainment for 1970-2010. Relative to low-skill population share, one-percentage-point increases in medium- and high-skill shares raise employment share of high-skill industries by 0.18 and 0.54 percentage points and reduce its low-skill counterpart by 0.39 and 0.32 percentage points, respectively. Establishment shares exhibit similar reallocation. Positive responses arise in nontradable sectors, whereas contractions occur primarily in tradable industries. A decomposition of changes in county mean schooling attributes 27 percent of the adjustment to between-industry reallocation and 73 percent to within-industry upgrading. A CES model with imperfect substitution across skill groups and sectoral differences in skill intensity provides a benchmark for the between-industry response. The findings establish industrial composition as an important margin through which local labor markets adjust to changes in relative skill supply.
• “Assessing the Effects of Establishment Entry on Competition and Variable Profits” with Joshua Scott and Eddy Junarsin
  Under Review
  Abstract

  Does new establishment entry decrease variable profits for existing competitors in a regulated market? This paper studies how retail entry affects incumbent variable profits in Washington’s recreational cannabis market. We combine seed-to-sale transaction data with plausibly exogenous variation generated by the state’s retail license allocation rules, lottery-based assignment in oversubscribed jurisdictions, and the 2016 expansion of retail license caps. In the baseline specification, we utilize an instrument set built from the log square root of county area and policy-interacted within-county rank measures tied to the 2016 cap expansion. We find that one additional retail establishment in a market reduces an incumbent’s monthly variable profits by 4.2% and lowers monthly revenue by 3.6%. The decline operates primarily through lower quantities sold rather than lower prices. The effects are substantially larger in jurisdictions that were already close to their relevant license caps before the 2016 expansion, which indicates that entry matters most where regulation had kept local competition especially scarce. The main findings are also robust to boundary-based market-definition checks and alternative competition measures. These results provide new evidence on the profit effects of entry in a regulated differentiated retail market, while also showing that the external relevance of entry estimates depends importantly on institutional setting when prices do not respond in the way documented in other retail contexts.
• “Holy Work: How Religiosity Shapes Local Labor Market Outcomes” with Mary Peshoff
  Abstract

  We utilize a novel identification strategy to quantify the impacts of religiosity on US local labor markets. Exploiting the quasi-random variation in historical immigration from 1850 to 2010 and origin-specific religiosity, we isolate exogenous variation in the religious composition of US commuting zones for 1940-2010. We find that, relative to the religiously Unaffiliated share, an exogenous increase in Protestant, Orthodox Christian, and “Other” religious shares decreases employment and marriage shares, whereas Jewish share increases employment and college education shares along with mean income in commuting zones. The share of married women in the workforce falls with all religious shares except Jewish share. Our findings reveal substantial heterogeneity by gender. We demonstrate both the causal effect of religiosity and the heterogeneous impacts of different faiths.
• "Firm Creation under DACA"
  Supported by the Institute for Humane Studies (Grant No. IHS020545)
  Abstract

  Undocumented immigration remains a central issue within US immigration policy debates, yet little is known about how legalization programs affect firm dynamics and labor market composition. In this paper, I study the impact of a particular legalization reform, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), enacted in 2012, on establishment and employment outcomes. I exploit variation in pre-treatment exposure to the policy in sectors and commuting zones, using a triple-difference estimator. I find that DACA increases establishment entry by 2.4 percent in more exposed sectors and temporarily reduces exit rates, suggesting market expansion and entrepreneurship amongst formerly undocumented workers. The share of native workers rises by 2.1 percentage points, whereas that of ineligible undocumented workers declines by a similar magnitude, demonstrating labor substitution. Heterogeneity estimates across sectoral skill types reveal that these effects are concentrated in low- and medium-skill sectors. These results have important policy implications such that immigrant regularization can enhance firm dynamism and facilitate labor reallocation, without displacing native workers.



Works in Progress



• “Learning to Set Prices During Recurring Demand Spikes” with Joshua Scott and Eddy Junarsin -- Draft Coming Soon!
  Summary

  This paper studies how retailers adjust prices during a predictable, recurring demand spike in a newly legal market. Retail prices fall sharply on the event day, while quantities sold and revenue increase, and these markdowns become more widespread across retailers over time. The results document the emergence and diffusion of promotional pricing across the market.
• “The Effect of Managerial Risk Preferences on Capital Structure Decisions” with Joshua Scott and Eddy Junarsin
  Summary

  This study examines how managerial risk preferences moderate the influence of peer firms on capital structure decisions. Using proprietary Compustat ExecuComp data from WRDS, we analyze whether peer effects are amplified or diminished depending on whether a CEO is risk seeking or risk averse. Our findings will show how firm financing outcomes reflect both external pressures from peer firms and the internal dispositions of decision-makers.
• “Weather Shocks, Violence, and Skill-Based Emigration from Mexico”