Research

Optimal Subsidies for Increasing Two-Year and Four-Year College Graduation Rates (Job Market Paper) Download paper here

In 2015, the Texas Education Agency (TEA) in collaboration with the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board (THECB) undertook an ambitious 60x30 TX plan as a part of its implementation of House Bill 22, introduced by the 85th Texas House of Representatives to enhance public school accountability. The 60x30 TX is a higher education plan that focuses on attaining a postsecondary graduation rate of 60% amongst the 25-34 age demographic in Texas by the year 2030. In this paper, I estimate the cost per high school graduate of attaining this target. I also compare the per student cost of this policy objective with that of two other counterfactual policies; the first being one in which community colleges are made tuition-free for all high school graduates and the second being one in which public four-year college tuition is subsidized annually by $2,000 only for those who have completed an AA tuition free under the former policy. I find that a policy in which community colleges are made tuition free will increase the postsecondary graduation rate by age 29 to 26.6%, relative to a baseline of 22.6%, and will cost $2,114 per student. I find that a $2,000 public four-year college subsidy for those who have first completed an AA tuition free will boost the postsecondary graduation rate to 29.4% and increase the per student cost to $10,594. Finally, I find that a conditional cash transfer of $5,320 and $3,640 for two-year and four-year college enrollment, respectively, attains the targeted postsecondary graduation rate of 60% by age 29 and costs $16,569 per student with an estimated total cost of $2.3 billion. This is far in excess of the THECB's FY2018 operating budget of $807 million.

Student Debt and Home Purchase (Working Paper)

with Atara Oliver, Rice University

The rapidly increasing levels of educational debt incurred by American students raises concerns over the effects that the debt could have on their ability to achieve their long-term goals, including homeownership. While amount of student loan debt held by households has increased over the last few decades, homeownership rates among young adults have declined. Additionally, if borrowers are taking out more loans to attain higher education, then higher future earnings could potentially mitigate the effect of student loan payments on home purchase. It is important to determine if the negative effect of student debt on housing demand is exceeded by the positive effect that comes from higher future earnings. The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between student loan debt and housing demand.

Examining Unemployment Flow Dynamics in the US Using a SVAR with Sign Restrictions (Toulouse School of Economics, Spring 2013)

This paper establishes dynamic features of the US labor market (1989-2012) within a two sector construction, non-construction framework using structural VAR with sign restrictions. I show that a heightened unemployment rate in the construction sector was an important driver of the unemployment dynamics during the Great Recession. This can be explained by the cyclical sensitivity of this sector, with little reliance on inventory inputs, and low separation rates of workers in the non-construction sector, so that displaced construction workers could not be easily reallocated.

A Comparative Study of the Unemployment Dynamics in the UK, US, France and Spain Using a Flow Approach (Barcelona Graduate School of Economics, Spring 2012)

This paper examines the unemployment dynamics in the UK, US, France and Spain in order to gauge the relative significance of unemployment inflows and outflows in producing aggregate unemployment movements. I find that while unemployment inflows play a dominant role in driving unemployment dynamics in the UK, France and the US, both inflows and outflows are equally important for unemployment movements in Spain. These results can be explained by institutional heterogeneities and interaction between negative shocks and labor market rigidities across these countries.