Job Market Paper
Blue Collar Booms and American Mortality: Evidence From the Fracking Revolution
Accepted at the American Journal of Health Economics
(with Vivek S. Moorthy)
Abstract: We exploit the positive labor demand shocks driven by the fracking boom to investigate whether improvements in economic opportunity reduce mortality. Using variation in geological characteristics amenable to fracking within a difference-in-differences design, we find that the boom reduces overall mortality for working aged adults. We find no robust evidence of reductions in external forms of death, such as suicide. Rather, the reductions are concentrated among more medically treatable causes, such as cardiovascular deaths. Finally, we find evidence of increased health insurance coverage following the boom. Our results suggest that increased access to medical care serves as an important mediator in the relationship between labor market conditions and mortality.
Working Papers
Abstract: Intergenerational mobility varies widely across the United States, and recent research has sought to understand why. This article considers the effects of large labor demand shocks on this geographic inequality. I show that the fracking boom and increased import competition led to substantial changes in upward mobility for the 1980-82 birth cohort, largely driven by changes at the bottom of the income distribution. The mobility and income gains are primarily realized by men from low-income backgrounds. Between 10-15 percent of the spatial variation of absolute upward mobility in the U.S. can be explained by fracking intensity and trade competition alone.
Work in Progress
Money and Motherhood: The Domestic Effects of a Migration Ban (with A. Nilesh Fernando and Alison Lodermeier)
Labor Intensity and Agricultural Tenancy Choice: Evidence from Historic US Counties