Professor Sheena Murray

 Professor Murray specializes in labor and applied econometrics, with a focus on the economics of education, household decisions, and health economics.  Chapters from her dissertation, An Empirical Exploration of the Determinants of Divorce, have been published in Economics Bulletin and are currently under review at Explorations in Economic History. Additionally, she worked on weather-induced migration and has a publication in the International Migration Review. A project on how broadband access affects marriage and divorce in the US was published in the Review of Economics of the Household.  Additionally, a paper on trends in long-acting contraception over the last decade was published in Applied Economic Letters.  Other working papers include projects that examine the pro-cyclicality of divorce, technology and fertility rates, and how broadband impacts labor markets in urban and rural areas differently.  

A joint project examining how conditions in graduate school can affect lifetime co-authorship rates with Andrew Hussey and Wendy Stock won an award for being a top-cited article in Economic Inquiry in 2023. Two other projects examining how advisors and mentors in graduate school affect students' productivity and job placements are forthcoming in Education Economics and Applied Economic Letters.   

Recent projects fuse her interest in the economic effects of contraception and the Tennessee region. She brings her statistical and data analysis skills to a partnership with A Step Ahead, a statewide charity that provides funding for long-acting reversible birth control. As the Primary Investigator on a Statewide impact study she has worked with the organization and combine records on contraception received with restricted CDC data on fertility and Census measures of education across the state. Dr. Murray is examining how expanded contraception in the last decade has affected demographic outcomes across the state.