Research

Working Papers

• Mechanism Reform: An Application to Child Welfare (with Richard Lombardo, Joseph Ryan, Jeongsoo Suh, and Quitzé Valenzuela-Stookey). NBER Working Paper #32369.

• Unwarranted Racial Disparity in U.S. Foster Care Placement  (with Joseph J. Doyle, Jr., Natalia Emanuel, and Peter Hull). Resubmitted, Journal of Policy Analysis and Management.

Peer-Reviewed Publications

• "Is There a Foster Care-To-Prison Pipeline? Evidence from Quasi-Randomly Assigned Investigators" (with Max Gross). NBER Working Paper #29922. Policy Impacts Library. Conditionally Accepted, The Review of Economics and Statistics. Media Coverage: Probable Causation, VoxEU, Brookings, National Review

• "Discrimination in Multi-Phase Systems: Evidence from Child Protection" (with Joseph J. Doyle, Jr., Natalia Emanuel, Peter Hull, and Joseph Ryan). Previously circulated as: "Racial Discrimination in Child Protection" NBER Working Paper #31490. Online Appendix. Forthcoming, The Quarterly Journal of Economics. Media Coverage: NBER Digest, FRBNY

• "Public School Funding, School Quality, and Adult Crime" (with Joshua Hyman and Brittany Vasquez). NBER Working Paper #29855. Pre-publication version. Policy Brief. Forthcoming, The Review of Economics and Statistics. Media Coverage: Thomas B. Fordham Institute, University of Michigan, News Nation, VoxEU

• "Pretrial Juvenile Detention" NBER Working Paper #29861. Policy Brief. Cato Research Brief. Journal of Public Economics, 217 (January 2023), 104798 (with Brian Jacob and Joseph Ryan).

• "The Push for Racial Equity in Child Welfare:  Can Blind Removals Reduce Disproportionality?" (with Ezra Goldstein and Joseph Ryan). Forthcoming, Journal of Policy Analysis and Management. Pre-publication version. 

• “Temporary Stays and Persistent Gains: The Causal Effects of Foster Care” (with Max Gross). American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, 14 (April 2022), pp. 170-99. Online Appendix

• “School Spending and Student Outcomes: Evidence from Revenue Limit Elections in Wisconsin,” American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, 14 (February 2022), pp. 1-39. Online Appendix. SSRN working paper version. Media Coverage: AEA Research Highlights, Chalkbeat, The Colorado Sun, Most-Read 2022 AEA Research Highlights 

• "Suffering in Silence: How COVID-19 School Closures Inhibit the Reporting of Child Maltreatment," Journal of Public Economics, 190 (October 2020), 104258 (with Ezra Goldstein and Cullen Wallace). SSRN working paper version. Media Coverage: The New York Times, Fox News, Chalkbeat, American Enterprise Institute

• "The Effect of Teachers' Unions on Student Achievement in the Short Run: Evidence from Wisconsin's Act 10," Economics of Education Review,  67 (December 2018), pp. 40-57. SSRN working paper version. Media Coverage: CNN Money, Chalkbeat, Slate, Center for American Progress

Other Publications

• "Unwarranted Disparity in High-Stakes Decisions: Race Measurement and Policy Responses"  (with Joseph J. Doyle, Jr., Natalia Emanuel, Peter Hull, and Joseph Ryan). In CRIW Race, Ethnicity, and Economic Statistics for the 21st Century, edited by Lawrence F. Katz, Mark Loewenstein, and Randall Akee. University of Chicago Press. 

• "Union Reform, Performance Pay, and New Teacher Supply: Evidence from Wisconsin's Act 10," AEA Papers and Proceedings, 111 (May 2021), pp. 445-49. SSRN working paper version. Media Coverage: Chalkbeat

• “Extending the Reach of Research Universities: A Proposal for Productivity Growth in Lagging Communities,” in Jay Shambaugh and Ryan Nunn, eds., Place-Based Policies for Shared Economic Growth (Washington D.C: Brookings Institution, 2018), pp. 157-84 (with Shawn Kantor and Alexander Whalley). Link to book. Media Coverage: Forbes, The New York Times