The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on detection and treatment of domestic violence injuries (with Lauren Gilbert and Susan Parker) Review of Economics of the Household, Feb. 2024 Previous studies have observed heterogeneous changes in domestic violence-related 911 calls, police incident reports, and arrests at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. In this study, we use a large-scale medical claims database with coverage of over 100 million patients to examine the impact on domestic violence victims’ use of emergency department care for their injuries in the early weeks of the pandemic compared to the corresponding weeks in previous years. We find a 35% decrease in utilization of emergency medical services by domestic violence victims between March and June of 2020.  Based on this finding, it is essential to use caution when using medical claims to measure domestic violence in future research covering this time period. Decreases in care utilization also have important implications for the detection, screening, and treatment of domestic violence injuries during future public health crises.

Local Shelter Availability and Intimate Partner Homicides (Job Market Paper) [Current Draft] This paper estimates the effect of having a shelter in a small to mid-size county on intimate partner homicide rates. Results from a modern staggered difference-in-differences model exploiting county-by-year changes on the extensive margin of shelter availability suggest that, while opening a shelter where there were no shelters previously has no immediate and significant effects on intimate partner homicide rates, closing a county's only shelter may increase homicide rates among unmarried women by about 10% over the next three to five years. 

The day after the recall: policing and prosecution in San Francisco (with Anna Kyriazis and Dvir Yogev) [Current Draft] Prosecutors’ policies and decisions are often the subjects of high-profile political debates and research studies on crime and recidivism. However, the effect of prosecutor policies on crime can be confounded by any simultaneous changes in police behavior. In this paper, we explore the effect of a contentious relationship between a local District Attorney and the corresponding police department during a political campaign to recall the DA. With policing, prosecution, and jail data from San Francisco, we use a regression kink in time design to study how local prosecutor politics affect police behavior. We find that police increase their effort after the “unfriendly” district attorney is recalled, resulting in an immediate increase in the local jail population. Our findings illustrate the importance of accounting for police departments' responses to prosecutorial politics when considering the effects of prosecutor policies on crime. 

Prosecution Research Initiative (with Amanda Agan, Anna Harvey, and Anna Kyriazis) An ongoing, multi-year project with $1,000,000 funding, in partnership with several large district attorneys' offices, using detailed administrative case data to study the effects of prosecutors' policies and decision making on recidivism, public safety, and racial disparities in the criminal justice system. (with Amanda Agan, Anna Harvey, and Anna Kyriazis)

Supported work leads to lasting labor market success among TANF recipients (with Tania Barham and Brian Cadena; draft coming soon)

Uber and domestic violence (with Lindsey Bullinger, Mayra Pineda-Torres, and Kait Sims)

Family violence effects of social safety net incentives for child support cooperation (with Susan Parker)