CV
Current Vitae
Brent I Norwood
University of Oklahoma
Department of Economics
308 Cate Center Drive, Room 336 cell: 409-739-2397
Norman, OK 73019 bnorwood09@ou.edu
EDUCATION
Ph.D. Candidate, Economics, University of Oklahoma, May 2021 (Expected)
Dissertation Title: “3 Essays in Local Public Finance through Housing and Education”
M.A., Economics and Entrepreneurship, University of Delaware, 2015
B.S., Economics, Texas A&M University, December 2009
TEACHING AND RESEARCH FIELDS
Fields: Applied Microeconomics, Education, Housing, Public Policy
Sub-Fields: Marijuana, Fracking
Select Publications
"I am Jane. Do I pay more in the housing market?" Economic Bulletin (2019)
Do women pay more than men in the housing market? We utilize repeat-sales housing data from ZTRAX to examine if gender gaps exist in house purchase prices and loan-to-price ratios. We find that female home buyers pay a 2% premium on average. In addition, female home buyers' loan to price ratio is 3 percentage points lower than that of male buyers. We also show that female buyers pay less when the seller is female than when the seller is male. However, the gender price differentials and loan-to-price differentials are disappearing in more recent years. One possible explanation for the disappearing gender price differentials in house prices and loan-to-price ratios is the shrinking of the gender wage gap in recent years.
WORKING PAPERS
Breakfast of Champions, Universal Free Breakfast and Conflict in Texas Schools
Job Market Paper. Under review at Public Finance Review
This paper investigates the relationship between student test scores and conflict outcomes in Texas public schools and whether or not schools participated in the Universal Free Breakfast Program (UFB). Eating a routine breakfast leads to increased physical and mental performance, as well as test scores. Surprisingly, there has been little focuses on how eating a routine breakfast affects behavior, such as violence, truancy, and classroom disruptions at school. I compile a panel data set from two administrative sources in Texas, spanning school years 2011/2012-2017/2018. Using fixed effects models, a staggered difference in differences model, and a fuzzy regression discontinuity design, I find that schools that offer UFB experience higher test scores and have reduced conflict outcomes such as fights, substance abuse, and truancy. These results suggest that the benefit schools receive from taking part in UFB are significant, help their students achieve better outcomes in schooling, behavior, general well-being, and increase funding from lower truancy rates.
Fracking and Tracking: The Effects of Underground Injection Control Wells have on the housing market.
The technique of hydraulic fracturing or "fracking", has made it possible to produce vast new quantities of oil and natural gas. States like Colorado, Texas, and Oklahoma have seen a dramatic increase in the number of wells for both oil and natural gas. In this study, the main source of exogenous variation to be explored is the location of injection well sites. With that I estimate the effect hydraulically fractured natural gas and oil injection sites have on both urban and rural residential home prices between years 2000 to 2018 in 9 different states. The data is coming from two rich data sets, one form the U.S. Department of Homeland Security that listed all oil and natural gas wells. The second comes from Zillow's ZTRAX data base and that contains home transaction and administrative data. ArcGis is used to combine the data and created varying buffer zones sizes around injection well sites to see how average home prices and the average number of transactions changed before and after a well is put in, and as distance from the well site increases. Both ordinary least squares (OLS) with fixed effects, a spatial differences in differences, and unconditional quantile regressions are used. Self selection bias is solved through the use of the spatial difference in difference. My results show that homes that are within .5 mile of a well have a $3.7% increase in selling price, as well as a $3.3% increase in price per square foot.
Is the Housing Market getting High: Recreational Marijuana Legalization and its affects on Local Housing Markets (with Donggeun Kim and Sean O’Connor)
Despite federal law, a number of states have legalized the recreational use of marijuana. Using a national housing data set from Zillow.com, we identify the cross and inter-state effect of marijuana legalization on the housing price distribution. Across states we find large positive effects in the bottom half of the distribution following the success of a vote to legalize and in the top half following the opening of dispensaries which provide a legal means of buying marijuana. Within Colorado, the introduction of dispensaries to a neighborhood similarly results in the appreciation of nearby home values. Considered together, this research suggests that there are second order benefits associated with marijuana legalization that policy makers and voters should be aware of when deciding the drug's legal status..
In Progress:
Flat Rate Tuition and Student Labor Market Outcomes: Evidence from the University of Oklahoma (with Gregory Burge)
TEACHING EXPERIENCE
Instructor
2019, 2020 Principles of Macroeconomics, The University of Oklahoma
2019, 2020 Principles of Microeconomics, The University of Oklahoma
2018, 2019 Intermediate Microeconomic Theory, The University of Oklahoma
2015, 2016 Principles of Macroeconomics, Lone Star College
2015,2016 Principles of Microeconomics, Lone Star College
2011-2016 Principles of Macroeconomics Dual Credit Lone Star College/Cypress Lakes High School
Teaching Assistant
2016,2017 Experimental Economics, The University of Oklahoma
2016,2017 International Trade, The University of Oklahoma
2016,2017 Game Theory, The University of Oklahoma
2016-2018 Principles of Macroeconomics, The University of Oklahoma
PROFESSIONAL ACTIVITIES
Conferences and Presentations:
November, 2019 (Scheduled) Fracking and Tracking, Southern Economics Association Conference
November, 2018 Breakfast of Champions, Missouri Valley Economic Association Conference
Course Redesign:
Summer 2019 I was put in charge of redesigning the online platform, course, videos, and all materials needed to run and teach the online Principles of Macroeconomics and Principles of Microeconomics classes at the University of Oklahoma. This involved creating all new video based content, interactive activities and discussions, bridging the Canvas and Connect pages to interface correctly with each other, and having a template built for future instructors to leverage and personalize when they teach the course.
Awards:
1st place winner of the Chong Liew Research Award 2018 at the University Oklahoma
Top Graduate Research Assistant Award, University of Oklahoma 2018-2019
REFERENCES
Gregory Burge Daniel Hicks
Associate Professor of Economics Associate Professor of Economics
University of Oklahoma University of Oklahoma
405-325-2358 405-325-7049
Gary Hoover
Department Chair
Professor of Economics
University of Oklahoma
405-325-5857