I am an Assistant Professor of Risk and Insurance at UW-Madison's Wisconsin School of BusinessMy research contains two focal areas: (1) public policy related to drugs and crime, focusing on prison policy and the opioid overdose epidemic, and (2) household finance, retirement, and financial literacy. My research has been published in top economics/finance journals, such as the Journal of Financial Economics and American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, as well as top field journals, such as the Journal of Human Resources, Journal of Risk and Insurance, and Journal of Law and Economics.

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. I am also actively engaged with a number of social science units on campus, including the Center for Financial Security Retirement and Disability Research Center, the Institute for Research on Poverty, and the Center for Demography of Health and Aging. I am an affiliated faculty at 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

Publications 

1. Set it and Forget it? Financing Retirement in an Age of Defaults 
     Forthcoming, Journal of Financial Economics
     (with Lucas Goodman and Shanthi Ramnath)

     Forthcoming, 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
      Journal of Law and Economics
, Vol 65 (May 2022) 
      (with Jennifer L. Doleac)
      IZA Discussion Paper No. 11489
  
    (with Junhao Liu)
    Journal of Risk and Insurance, Vol 88, Issue 1, March 2021   

7. Targeting Weather Insurance Markets
    (with Shawn Cole and Jeremy Tobacman)
    Journal of Risk and Insurance, Vol 88, Issue 3, Sept 2021  

8. Improving the Use of Health Products: A Sales Experiment with Chlorine Tablets
    (with Camille Boudot-Reddy)
   
Health Economics, Vol 30, Issue 3, March 2021  

    (with Hessam Bavafa) 
    AEA Papers and Proceedings 2019

10. Building Financial and Health Literacy at Older Ages: The Role of Online Information
    (with Hessam Bavafa
and Junhao Liu)
    Journal of Consumer Affairs, Vol 53, Issue 3, Fall 2019  

    Media coverage: Center for Financial Security

11. Time and Money: Social Security Benefits and Intergenerational Transfers
      AEA Papers and Proceedings 2018

12. Assessing the Demand for Micropensions among India's Poor
     (with Olivia S. Mitchell)
     The Journal of the Economics of Ageing, Vol 9, June 2017 

    Media coverage: Knowledge@WhartonWSB Forward Thinking Blog, Innovations for Poverty Action,
    Pension Research Council

Completed Working Papers

     NBER Working Paper 28987, July 2021 
     (with Nicholas J. Sanders) 

     U.S. Congress Testimony: cited in hearing on "Advancing Environmental Justice through Climate Action" by Dr. R. Jisung Park

14. Inequities in the Golden Years: How Wealth Shapes Healthy and Work-Free Life
     (with Hessam Bavafa and Tyler Welch) 
     Revisions requested, Journal of Health Economics

Works-in-Progress

15. Does Health Insurance Reduce Consumption Risk?
     (with Daniel W. Sacks and Hoyoung Yoo) 

16. Retirement Savings and Age-Based Contribution Rules
     (with Brent Davis and Mingli Zhong) 

Other Publications / Writing


    The Journal of the Economics of Ageing

    (with Corina Mommaerts)
    Center for Financial Security Working Paper, October 2020

    (with Corina Mommaerts)
    Center for Financial Security Working Paper, October 2019

    Special Issue on Financing Longevity, October 2018
    The Journal of the Economics of Ageing

    (with Jennifer Doleac and Molly Schnell)
    Brookings Institute, December 2018

    Media coverage: The Regulatory Review

    (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

Teaching

I 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 StudentsWSB Faculty Showcase Classroom Innovations, New initiative sparks educational innovation and students reap the benefits