Job Market Paper
"The Impact of DACA on Juvenile Crime and School Safety"
Funded by Arnold Ventures and the Connolly Alexander Institute for Data Science
Abstract: DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) provides temporary work authorization and deportation protection to individuals meeting strict age, residency, education, and criminal history criteria. Although not its primary focus, DACA’s requirements shift young people’s incentives, and this project investigates whether those shifts prompted changes in student misbehavior. Specifically, leveraging restricted-access, student-level data from Texas, I use a both a Difference-in-Differences and a Triple Difference approach to assess DACA’s impact on juvenile crime and school discipline. I compare likely undocumented students to those who are not by combining two unique administrative flags—showcasing granularity not seen in previous literature. Relative to likely undocumented students’ averages, DACA decreased in-school and out-of-school suspensions per student per year by 10.9% and 16.5%, respectively. Transfers to alternative education programs, a proxy for juvenile crime, also fell by 13.7% per student per year due to DACA. All findings are significant at the 1% level and robust to sample and specification variations. These results have important implications for disciplinary policy, demonstrating how students’ incentives can be shifted to deter juvenile crime and misbehavior.
Other Working Papers
"Does Violence Breed More Violence? The Impact of Police Killings on Juvenile Delinquency"
Abstract: Over 1,000 people in the U.S. are killed by the police every year, and this number has been increasing since 2019. However, little is known about the broader impacts of police killings, especially on children. We know that police killings have a negative impact on kids’ academics (Ang, 2021), but not how they impact kids’ behaviors. In this paper, I quantify the impact of police killings on juvenile delinquency. Focusing specifically on suspensions, expulsions, arrests, and bullying, I leverage geographic variation in the location of police killings and use a staggered DiD design to focus on the impact of a single police killing on a school. For juvenile delinquency data, I utilize the Civil Rights Data Collection, which details school-level counts of juvenile delinquency outcomes. For police killings data, I use the Mapping Police Violence database, which details police officer caused deaths. Preliminary results from the single killing analysis show a significant increase in suspensions for schools - but all other outcomes examined are not affected.
Draft Available Upon Request
Works in Progress
"Parent’s Choice or School’s Choice? Discrimination Against Students in Admission to Private, Charter, and Traditional Public Schools"
with Patrick Button, Hussain Hadah, and Douglas Harris
Description: This project examines discrimination during the school inquiry process and how it varies across charter, public, and private K–12 schools in the United States. Recently awarded over $140,000 from the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL), we plan to launch a pilot study in November–December. I contribute to the experimental design, create data collection procedures, and will supervise research assistants starting in December.
"Gender Identity, Race, Ethnicity, and Health Insurance Discrimination in Access to Mental Health Care: Evidence from an Audit Correspondence Field Experiment"
with Patrick Button, Yu Liu, Luca Fumarco, Benjamin Harrell, and David Schwegman
Description: This study measures discrimination against transgender and non-binary individuals seeking mental healthcare. We are halfway through data collection and plan to release a working paper next spring. I played a central role in the experimental design and led data collection, overseeing over 20 undergraduate and graduate research assistants to ensure data quality and protocol adherence.
Other Research Materials