Working Papers

“Gender Differences in Labor Market Reactions: Evidence from Firm Restatements,” with Meredith Rhodes. Revisions Requested.
We find evidence that gender influences labor market reactions to an executive's oversight. Using financial restatements, we find that female executives face more adverse labor market outcomes than their males. Women experience higher turnover rates and larger reductions in incentive-based compensation after a restatement than men. We find no evidence that these findings are driven by managerial sorting or the severity of the restatement. We explore the impact of board diversity on the gap and find that more female directors mitigate the effect on female executive turnover but are associated with greater reductions in incentives-based pay relative to male executives. 

"Local Economic Impact of Hemp Cultivation: Evidence from a Natural Experiment Created by the 2018 Farm Bill," with Katharine Nester (Former Master's in Economics Student PSU '24) and Sahan T. M. Dissanayake. Revisions Requested.
Hemp was illegal to cultivate in the United States from 1970 until its removal from Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act in the 2018 Federal Farm Bill. Using that bill as a natural experiment, we leverage the variation in state hemp laws in a difference-in-difference analysis to estimate the county-level impact of hemp cultivation on real GDP, farm earnings, and employment. We employ entropy balancing to address differences in key variables between our control and treatment groups. Our findings suggest that growing hemp has a positive impact on real GDP and farm earnings but practically no effect on employment.

“The effect of contraceptive access on number of children and labor market activity of young women: Evidence from Medicaid family planning waivers.” 

I exploit state-level variation in Medicaid family planning expansions and find that these expansions led to a reduction in the number of children in the household for low-income young women. In particular, I find that both single and married women are less likely to have a young child, although there are differences along the margin. The reduction in children for single women is primarily driven by the extensive margin, having a child or not. In contrast, the reduction in children for married women is from a reduction in the likelihood of having a second child. I find that the expansions have differential effects on labor outcomes. Married women are more likely to be employed, and the increase is primarily attributed to an increase in part-time work.  I see no impact on single women's labor market outcomes.