Laura Nettuno, PhD

I am an Associate Economist at the RAND Corporation. 

I'm an applied microeconomist with interests in health, labor,  development, and LGBTQ+ economics. I am broadly interested in studying health and labor market disparities among marginalized and vulnerable groups, including but not limited to LGBTQ+ populations, women and children, and people from developing countries. My research has examined the employment outcomes and socioeconomic status of transgender people both in the U.S. and in Latin America, studied disparities in the health and health insurance coverage of sexual minority people in Chile, and documented new patterns in family formation for LGBTQ+ individuals. My work has appeared in peer-reviewed journals such as Labour Economics, the Southern Economic Journal, PLOS One, and others, and has been cited by the CDC. 

I recently graduated from  Vanderbilt University Department of Economics in 2025, where I was a trainee in the VU LGBTQ+ Policy Lab and the VU Center for Research on Inequality and Health. In my job market paper, I study the effects of anti-discrimination laws on families by leveraging data on sexual minorities serving in the U.S. military before and after the repeal of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" (DADT), a policy that prohibited LGBTQ+ people from openly serving. I find that repealing DADT substantially increased same-sex partnership among women in the military, while having no effect on same-sex partnership rates among active duty men. Additionally, I document that civilian women in same-sex partnerships with active-duty women were more likely to obtain military health insurance coverage after the repeal of DADT, highlighting the policy's broader impact on the families of active duty service members. 

You can contact me by email at: Lnettuno@rand.org 

I also have a Twitter account: @Laura_Nettuno