Research

Research Interest

I am primarily interested in researching the impact of government transportation policy on workers and labor market outcomes. I am also interested in human capital development and skill development.

Voting for Transit: The Labor Market Impact of Public Transportation Improvements , Job Market Paper, (Working Paper)

Does better access to public transportation improve workers' ability to access quality jobs? I study the labor market impact of public transportation investment in the United States using a regression discontinuity design. In certain locales, public transit investments are, in part, assigned following local ballot measures on tax and spending proposals. I use ballots that narrowly passed or failed to identify the effects of transit spending. As expected, passage increases operational expenditure and ridership. If increased transit provision reduces labor market frictions, we could expect to see increased job-to-job flows and hiring rates. However, I find precise zero effects on job-to-job flows, and increases in funding do not result in a significant impact on hiring rates for workers overall, for high school graduates, or for college graduates. Employment increases in metropolitan areas that pass these measures, but this appears to be due to modest increases in population.

Other Research Projects

"Skills and the Geography of Economic Opportunity" (with Sulagna Mookerjee and David Slichter), in progress