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Research
Interests: Labor, Public and Urban Economics
Job Market Paper
The Role of Census Tract Boundaries
Abstract: An important but less well-known feature of census tract geography is the role boundaries play in determining low-income, government-subsidized neighborhoods. Every ten years, in preparation for the Decennial Census, these boundaries are updated to accommodate population changes, and little is known to what extent these boundary changes affect the racial composition of neighborhoods. This paper investigates short- and long-run implications of neighborhoods that “split”, exploiting Decennial Censuses from 1980 to 2010. Using difference-in-differences and event study designs, I find that “split” census tracts increase in their proportion of Black residents and these effects persist decades. Common trends analysis suggests these effects cannot be explained by observable differences prior to each Decennial Census. Instead, I find evidence that the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit program may play a role in concentrating residents in areas with greater census tract delineation. My results suggest that census tract delineation may play an important role in shaping neighborhood dynamics.
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Census Bureau Research Data Center (RDC) Project
Household Spatial Sorting Impacts of the Housing and Financial Crisis (w/ John Anderson)
Census Bureau Abstract: The predominant purpose of this project is to provide analysis of the bursting of the housing bubble during the 2007-2009 period on the Tiebout-like sorting pattern of households. The areas of interest include three large metropolitan areas that experienced varying degrees of housing market impacts: Phoenix, Denver, and St. Louis. The testable hypothesis is that the housing crisis caused a significant resorting of individuals both within and across communities. The first empirical strategy constructs several neighborhood heterogeneity metrics using geographically detailed, individual-level data on income, age profile, housing tenure, occupation status, educational attainment, and race. These metrics are plotted over time and in choropleth maps to visually depict varying degrees of heterogeneity within and across neighborhoods. The second strategy merges external housing data to the restricted-use data to understand the role housing markets played in contributing to neighborhood heterogeneity over this volatile period.
Working Papers
Splitting Tracts: The Impact of Neighborhood Racial Dynamics on Economic Opportunity
Abstract: Racial inequality holds a longstanding position as one of the primary components contributing to economic inequality for Black residents. A well established literature has attempted to measure the impacts of urban racial separation on economic outcomes for minority residents; however less attention has been placed on developing channels through which racial unevenness reduces economic opportunity, and if these effects impact minorities differentially. This paper investigates the heterogeneous impacts of urban racial separation across several educational and labor market outcomes, and explores potential channels for the resulting relationships. Using variation in census tract boundaries from 1980 to 2010 Decennial Censuses to instrument for levels of urban racial separation, I find that tract-induced racial separation negatively impacts Black individuals across both income and skill distributions. Contributing factors include fewer local job opportunities in predominantly Black neighborhoods, and increased commuting costs for those with jobs. Further evidence suggests these increases in separation, in already predominantly Black neighborhoods, reduce economic and geographic mobilities into adulthood. These results have important implications for fostering equal economic opportunity in areas of high racial separation.
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The Landscape of Higher Education Enrollment: Evidence from the Expansion of the For-Profit Sector
Abstract: Every year the federal government spends billions of dollars financing higher education. The goal is to not only enroll students who face borrowing constraints, and would otherwise be unlikely to attend an institution of higher education at all, but to encourage students to complete a degree; however, with the rapid expansion of the for-profit sector of higher education, students have to further evaluate where to go in order to realize the benefits of completing a degree. This paper documents the changing landscape of enrollment and graduation rates during the expansion of the for-profit sector in the early 2000s. Using a descriptive approach, I construct a measure of institutional quality and show that institutions of the lowest quality, primarily for-profit institutions, experienced the largest increases in enrollment from 2001 to 2011 as well as large decreases in graduation rates. Decomposing these changes in the lowest quality institutions suggests that aggregate graduation rates decreased primarily as a result of the changing enrollment landscape across higher education. On the contrary, almost all of the growth in aggregate graduation rates of the highest quality institutions come from within institution changes to the graduation rate. These results suggest that as enrollment in higher education expands, schools become more selective in who they enroll, and may have consequences for students attending lower quality institutions.
Examining the Effects of Poverty on Municipal Public Finances: 1980-2010
Abstract: Poverty is a persistent feature of American society. Previous work has well documented the negative impacts of growing up in poverty on individual outcomes, but less is known on the role poverty plays in contributing to local public economies. Because some localities provide a full array of public services, while others share the responsibility with overlying independent governments, previous work can be misleading in fiscal comparisons. This paper overcomes this issue by matching poverty characteristics to newly available fiscally-standardized data through the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy. Using a shift-share design, my results suggest that increases in local poverty reduce local tax revenues – primarily driven by reductions in property and sales tax revenues, and partially offset by increased reliance on intergovernmental transfers from state governments. In terms of expenditure, I find that local poverty reduces investment in important public safety services: police expenditures, fire protection services, and highway infrastructure – all with elasticities greater than one. This work contributes to our understanding of how the lower end of the income distribution, an often ignored but important group, affect local public finances.
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