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Welcome!
Welcome!
I am a Ph.D. candidate in Economics at the University of Missouri, and I am on the job market in 2026-2027. My research evaluates economic trade-offs in the criminal justice system. In particular, I examine the intended effects and unintended consequences of criminal justice reform using administrative records, publicly available aggregate data, and original policy data collection.
You can find my CV here.
Education
University of Missouri — Ph.D. in Economics, Expected May 2027
University of Missouri — M.A. in Economics, May 2025
University of South Dakota — B.B.A. in Economics, May 2022
Working papers
The Effects of Citations in Lieu of Arrests: Evidence from Maryland
Job Market Paper
I examine the effects of replacing arrests with criminal citations for low-level offenses on defendant outcomes and future criminal charges. Using Maryland court records, I implement a difference-in-discontinuities design that exploits a 2013 policy shock encouraging citations in lieu of arrest. I find the policy increased citation issuance by 48.5% and decreased pretrial detention by 36.3% among eligible defendants, with little evidence of increases in failures to appear or re-offending. However, reduced pretrial detention among eligible defendants is offset by increased detention among defendants charged with more serious, citation-ineligible offenses, leaving aggregate pretrial detention unchanged.
The Effects of Restricting Police Chases on Public Safety
Revise & Resubmit at Journal of Human Resources
This paper examines the effects of police departments implementing restrictive vehicular pursuit policies that limit chases to suspects of violent felonies. Using stacked difference-in-differences models and synthetic control methods, I analyze the impact of these policy changes on fatal police chase accidents and motor vehicle theft. I compile an original dataset of restrictive pursuit policy enactments, linked to data from the Fatality Analysis Reporting System and Uniform Crime Reporting program. I estimate a 41.3% reduction in fatal police chase accidents following the policy adoption. Motor vehicle theft increases by an imprecise 3.5%, while its clearance rate declines by 10.5%
Works in Progress
The Effects of Cigar Taxes on Cigar Prices and Tobacco Product Sales: Evidence from Retail Panel Data (with Rachel Y.L. Fung, Abigail S. Friedman, and Michael F. Pesko)
Despite the health risks associated with cigar use, the effects of cigar taxes on prices and sales are less documented than those of taxes on other sin goods such as cigarettes and alcohol. Using NielsenIQ Retail Scanner data from 2010 to 2023, we estimate the effect of cigar taxes on cigar prices and sales. We find that 89% of large cigar taxes are passed onto large cigar retail prices for consumers using stacked difference-in-differences methods. Similarly, we find a 95% pass-through for little cigars. We do not find a statistically detectable effect of these tax increases on aggregate large-cigar or cigarette sales.
The Effect of Drug Screening Laws on Access to Public Assistance (with Brendan Cirillo and Brittany Street)
We examine the effect of state-level policies imposing barriers to welfare benefits. Specifically, we study the rollout of policies imposing mandatory testing, suspicion-based testing, and drug use screening surveys for Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) take-up. We use a stacked difference-in-differences design and annual state-level TANF caseload data to analyze the policy impacts. We find that these policies reduce TANF caseloads by approximately 22%, with similar decreases in enrollment among adults and children, despite children not being directly subject to the policies.
Revisiting Officer Discretion and Racial Disparities Using Maryland Speeding Tickets (with Davis Bell)
Police officers can reduce speeding fines by recording a driver's speed just below a threshold at which fines increase, effectively cutting drivers a break. We examine how differences in fine structures across roads shape officer discretion and whether it differs by driver race. In Maryland, the fine for driving 10 rather than 9 mph over the speed limit increases from $80 to $90 on lower-speed roads but doubles on higher-speed roads. On higher-speed roads, 40% of tickets are written at 9 mph over the limit, compared to only 18% on lower-speed roads. Furthermore, White drivers are 5.6 percentage points more likely than non-White drivers to receive a break on higher-speed roads relative to lower-speed roads.
Publications
Standardizing the Measurement of Cigar Tax Rates in the United States, 2010–2024 with Abigail Friedman, Rachel Y.L. Fung, and Michael F. Pesko. Tobacco Control, 2026.
Teaching
Principles of Microeconomics (University of Missouri)
Graduate Instuctor (Fall 2025)
Head Teaching Assistant (Fall 2023)
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