I am an Assistant Professor of Economics at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and a Faculty Research Fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research.
I will be visiting Stanford as a SIEPR Visiting Assistant Professor for the 2025-26 academic year.
Find my CV here: CV
Email: dsilver [at] ucsb [dot] edu
Mail: Department of Economics, UCSB
2127 North Hall, Santa Barbara, CA 93106-9210
Office hours for PhD students: Link
Work in progress
Anatomy of a Medical Guideline (with Yuli Xu)
Reforming Reimbursement Policy: Evidence from Skilled Nursing Facilities (with Tal Gross, Adam Sacarny, and Maggie Shi)
Understanding Demand for VA Disability Compensation (with Jonathan Zhang)
Career Trajectories and the Physician Labor Market
Publications
Haste or Waste? Peer Pressure and Productivity in the Emergency Department
Review of Economic Studies, May 2021
The Health Impacts of Hospital Delivery Practices (with David Card and Alessandra Fenizia)
AEJ: Economic Policy, May 2023
NBER working paper no. 25986
Old version: NBER working paper no. 24493, 2018
Nontechnical summary: NBER Bulletin on Health
Geographic Variation in Cesarean Sections in the United States: Trends, Correlates, and Other Interesting Facts (with Sarah Robinson and Heather Royer)Â
Journal of Labor Economics, April 2024
NBER working paper no. 31871
Nontechnical summary: NBER Bulletin on Health
Regulated Revenues and Hospital Behavior: Evidence from a Medicare Overhaul (with Tal Gross, Adam Sacarny, and Maggie Shi)
Review of Economics and Statistics, November 2024
NBER working paper no. 29023
Invisible Wounds: How Mental Disability Benefits Shape Veteran Well-Being (with Jonathan Zhang)
AEJ: Economic Policy, February 2026
NBER working paper no. 29877
