Job Market Paper
Who Bears the Cost of School Closures?
Evidence from Puerto Rico
Paper ↗
I estimate a structural model of school choice and educational production using linked student–teacher records from Puerto Rico. The results show that school consolidation placed sharply unequal burdens on communities with fewer nearby alternatives.
76.3%
of model-implied access losses are borne by rural-poor households, who account for 46.3% of predicted displacement.
Abstract
This paper studies how the consequences of school consolidation depend on the effectiveness and accessibility of the schools that remain. Using linked student–teacher records and enrollment before and after closures in Puerto Rico, I estimate a structural model in which families choose schools, while schools and teachers jointly contribute to achievement. Among closures before Hurricane María, high-poverty rural schools had higher estimated school effects, net of teacher composition, than their surviving local alternatives. Children displaced from high-poverty rural schools entered schools with estimated school effects averaging 0.16 test-score standard deviations below those of their origins, with little average improvement over the surviving local benchmark. The demand estimates show greater distance sensitivity among rural households. In the baseline model, rural-poor households bear 76.3 percent of model-implied access losses while accounting for 46.3 percent of predicted displacement. These findings show why enrollment alone is an incomplete guide to the distributional consequences of school consolidation.
Working Paper
Limiting the Influence of Rich Voters on Elections
The Case of the Democracy Voucher in Seattle
Paper ↗
Using Seattle’s Democracy Voucher program, I study how public campaign funding changes private political contributions across income and political groups. An event-study design and a micro-founded contest model reveal heterogeneous responses and their implications for political influence.
Abstract
This paper investigates voters’ responses to public funding in elections using Seattle’s Democracy Voucher program. Private political donations decrease on average after public funding is distributed, but responses differ significantly across income and political groups. Contributors with higher incomes and larger prior political donations reduce their private contributions less than other groups. A micro-founded contest model helps interpret these patterns and examine how public funding redistributes political influence.
Peer-Reviewed Publication
Ride-hailing Demand Elasticity: A Regression Discontinuity Method
with S. A. Madanizadeh and H. Joshaghani · Journal of Industrial and Business Economics, 50: 907–932, 2023
Other Working Paper
The Effects of School Consolidation on Students and Teachers
Evidence from an Underperforming System
with Gustavo J. Bobonis, Orlando J. Sotomayor, Jeancarlo Vélez Lebrón, and Jessica Wagner
Work in Progress
Democracy Vouchers and Candidate Policy Positions in Seattle