I am an Assistant Professor of Risk and Insurance at UW-Madison's Wisconsin School of Business. My research focuses on the impact of insurance, financial literacy, and legal policies on vulnerable populations, especially related to retirement, aging, and health. I also hold a special interest in economic policy regarding the opioid crisis, prisons, and crime.
I am a fellow of the TIAA Institute, a consultant at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago (Insurance Initiative), and a member of the G53 Financial Literacy and Personal Finance Research Network at George Washington University's Global Financial Literacy Excellence Center. I am also actively engaged with a number of social science units on campus, and am an affiliate of the Center for Financial Security, the Institute for Research on Poverty, the Center for Demography and Ecology, the Center for Demography of Health and Aging, and the University of Wisconsin Law School. Outside of campus, I am a member of Risk Theory Society and the Justice Tech Lab. I have previously co-edited a special issue on Financing Longevity for The Journal of the Economics of Ageing.
I earned my Ph.D. in Applied Economics at The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. I also hold an M.S. in Management Science and Engineering, a B.S. in Mathematics, and a B.A. in Economics, all from Stanford University. Prior to enrolling at Wharton, I spent two years working as a consultant in the financial services division at Oliver Wyman in New York. Link to my CV
Peer-Reviewed Publications1. Set it and Forget it? Financing Retirement in an Age of Defaults
Accepted, Journal of Financial Economics (with Lucas Goodman and Shanthi Ramnath) Media coverage: US News Money, American Society of Pension Professionals & Actuaries, Yahoo Money, Investment News, 2. The Effects of the Opioid Crisis on Employment: Evidence from Labor Market Flows Accepted, Journal of Human Resources (with Daniel W. Sacks and Hoyoung Yoo) Media coverage: HealthLawProf Blog 3. The Effects of Naloxone Access Laws on Opioid Abuse, Mortality, and Crime Forthcoming, Journal of Law and Economics (with Jennifer L. Doleac) IZA Discussion Paper No. 11489 IZA Newsroom Clarification on Paper Media coverage: The Atlantic, Washington Post, The Times, Globe and Mail, Forbes, Buzzfeed, Wall Street 4. Intergenerational Altruism and Retirement Transfers: Evidence from the Social Security Notch
Journal of Human Resources, August 2020 5. Impacts of Private Prison Contracting on Inmate Time Served and Recidivism Media Coverage: New Yorker, TIME, Huffington Post, The Fiscal Times, Mother Jones, The Hill, Wisconsin State Journal, (with Junhao Liu)
Journal of Risk and Insurance, Vol 88, Issue 1, March 2021
Journal of Risk and Insurance, Vol 88, Issue 3, Sept 2021
(with Camille Boudot-Reddy)
Health Economics, Vol 30, Issue 3, March 2021 9. Building Financial and Health Literacy at Older Ages: The Role of Online Information Media coverage: Center for Financial Security 10. Assessing the Demand for Micropensions among India's Poor Media coverage: Knowledge@Wharton, WSB Forward Thinking Blog, Innovations for Poverty Action, Non Peer-Reviewed Publications (with Hessam Bavafa) AEA Papers and Proceedings 2019 AEA Papers and Proceedings 2018 (with Jennifer Doleac and Molly Schnell) Brookings Institute, December 2018 Media coverage: The Regulatory Review 4. Financing Longevity: The Economics of Pensions, Health, and Long-Term Care - Introduction to the Special Issue (with Karen Eggleston) Special Issue on Financing Longevity, October 2018
The Journal of the Economics of Ageing Working Papers/ Works-in-Progress1. The Causal Effect of Heat on Violence: Social Implications of Unmitigated Heat Among the Incarcerated NBER Working Paper 28987, July 2021 (with Nicholas J. Sanders) Media coverage: Freakonomics MD, The Economist, Science News, Econofact, The Independent, Head Topics U.S. Congress Testimony: cited in hearing on "Advancing Environmental Justice through Climate Action" by Dr. R. Jisung Park (with Hessam Bavafa and Tyler Welch) 3. Fiscal Effects of Full Retirement Age Increases: Regression Discontinuity Evidence from Tax Data (with Lucas Goodman and Daniel W. Sacks) in-progress Hotter Temperaments: Prisons and Violence in a Warming World (with Nicholas J. Sanders) Econofact, November 2021 The Journal of the Economics of Ageing
The Journal of the Economics of Ageing
(with Corina Mommaerts) (with Corina Mommaerts)
Center for Financial Security Working Paper, October 2019 (with J. Michael Collins and Junhao Liu)
Encyclopedia of Gerontology and
Population Aging
(section: Social Security and Pension Systems), Springer, March 2019 (with
Lois Miller)
Encyclopedia of Gerontology and Population Aging (section: Social Security and Pension Systems), Springer, March 2019 (with Samik Adhikari, Shardul Oza, and Shahid Vaziralli)
Institute for Financial Management and Research Working Paper, August 2012 TeachingI co-developed and co-teach a course on Business Analytics (GenBus 306). This course is now required of all BBA students at the Wisconsin School of Business. All course materials are available through a portal available to registered students. The learning objectives of the course are for students to: (1) acquire “statistical literacy,” meaning that they can interpret statistics frequently used in current events, industry reports, and so on; (2) distinguish between descriptive and inferential statistics, and apply skills such as data summarization, hypothesis testing, and regression analysis, using Excel; (3) apply the core concepts of probability to decision-making under uncertainty, including an introduction to simulation; (4) synthesize their knowledge with quantitative business cases; and; (5) effectively communicate data analyses in written, visual, and oral formats. Coverage: Innovation in Course Design Drives New Level of Learning for Business Analytics Students, WSB Faculty Showcase Classroom Innovations, New initiative sparks educational innovation and students reap the benefits |