Working Papers:
"Worker Skills and the Black-White Male Unemployment Gap" (Job Market Paper)
Abstract: In the United States, there is a persistent gap in the unemployment rates between black and white male workers. Differences in labor force composition across observable demographic characteristics fail to explain the majority of this gap. This paper develops a search and matching framework with heterogeneity in worker skills to quantitatively evaluate how differences in life cycle experience and skill development contribute to the unemployment gap. I calibrate the model separately for black and white male workers and identify differences across i) skill development patterns and ii) the returns to skill development over the life cycle. Using the calibrated model, I find that differences in life cycle skill development patterns account for about a fifth of the black-to-white unemployment ratio. Closing the racial gap in the returns to skill development decreases the unemployment ratio by 16.2 percent. Finally, the interaction between the two channels explains about 33 percent of the unemployment ratio.
Work in Progress:Â
"Involuntary Part-Time Employment, Gig Roll-out, and Flexibility of Work" with Matthew Eaton
"Skill Mismatch and the Racial Unemployment Gap"
Publications (Pre-Doctoral):
"Climatic Refugees: Internal migration in the face of climate change in India " in South Asia and Climate Change. Routledge India, 2021.