"Old Habits Die Hard: The Impact of Negative Experimental Evidence on the Continued Use of Medical Procedures" available here

The U.S. is estimated to spend on the order of $100 billion annually on medical services that provide little or no benefit One strand of low-value care, the continued use of ineffective surgical procedures, not only leads to wasteful aggregate spending, but burdens patients financially and needlessly put them at risk of potentially fatal complications. This paper test whether evidence showing a procedure to be ineffective substantially changes doctor's treatment decisions. To do this I implement an event-study design to estimate how doctors respond to evidence from randomized controlled trials published in a major medical journal that a procedure is ineffective or harmful. I find that the use of the procedures in question only declines modestly by 10% within two years of publication and 30% within 4 years. Furthermore, focusing on a subset of publications with more definitive findings, I find an effect size of similar magnitude. The slow adoption of new evidence is similar between privately and government insured patients, and there is only weak evidence that non-profit hospitals abandon procedures at a higher rate than medical-school affiliated and for-profit ones. That medical procedures are still commonly performed long after the publication of evidence revealing they are ineffective or harmful suggests the need for greater integration between research and practice.

"The Effect of Federal Policy on For-Profit Higher Education: Evidence From National Elections"

(with Professor George Bulman) 2018 working paper available here

We examine the effect of presidential and congressional elections on the stock prices of for-profit colleges and student loan companies. Identification based on policy announcements is hindered by market anticipation, whereas elections provide well-quantified shocks to the policy environment. For-profit college stocks experienced large and immediate abnormal returns after the last two presidential elections, but little change after prior presidential elections or midterm elections. Private student loan stocks have been sensitive to presidential and congressional results over the last four election cycles. The pattern of estimates is consistent with an important role for recent gainful employment rules, greater data availability, and the expansion of direct federal loans. The effects are largest for colleges with poor debt-to-earnings ratios and high veteran enrollment rates, but abnormal returns are evident across nearly all firms, suggesting that federal policies pose a threat to the profitability and viability of a significant fraction of the industry.

"The Effect of Point-of-Sale Law Enforcement Efforts on Underage Drinking: Evidence from Minor Decoy Citations" available soon

Underage alcohol consumption remains a large public health concern in the U.S., with minors age 12 to 20 accounting for 11% of all alcohol consumption nationally. This project examines the impact of Minor Decoy (MD) citations (a law enforcement strategy targeting liquor license holders rather than underage consumers) in curbing underage alcohol-related crimes. Leveraging spatial variation in when citations occur, I use an event-study analysis to study the impact of these citations on arrest rates per 10,000 people for 18-20 year olds, 21-24 year olds and all adults 18 and over. I find suggestive evidence that there is an increase in overall alcohol-related arrests on the day of the citation, mostly driven by liquor law violations. All other arrest categories show no detectable impact of MD citations in curbing underage alcohol-related crime. This may be due to the nature of the treatment itself, rather than a true null effect.