Research

(Job Market Paper)

In this paper, I ask if donor preferences for giving to local charities create a mismatch between where high-capacity food pantries exist and where food pantry customers live, indicating a greater under-provision of charitable resources where charities are in highest demand. I find that food pantry customers living in high-income, rural neighborhoods live within 20 miles of 40 more food pantries than customers in low-income neighborhoods. Customers in low-income neighborhoods also face more restrictions, such as limits on the number of food pantry visits they are allowed each month. Based on customer behavior, I identify the pantry characteristics that customers value most, including the preferred distribution hours and variety of food offerings. I then use these preferences to show that customers in high-income neighborhoods receive a higher per-visit benefit than customers in low-income neighborhoods. In a counterfactual simulation, I show that redistributing funding to improve pantries in low-income areas increases consumer surplus by 3.3% overall, with a 4-5% increase for customers in the lowest-income neighborhoods, equivalent to nearly one additional meal per visit. [Working paper]

This paper explores the relationship between adult healthcare utilization and hydraulic fracturing on the Eagle Ford Shale formation in Texas. Using a staggered difference-in-differences estimation strategy, I find that inpatient claims for conditions plausibly related to hydraulic fracturing increase by 15 percent in shale zip codes after the entry of hydraulic fracturing, relative to zip codes outside of the shale formation. I then construct a novel dataset that combines public water source data with healthcare claims and oil and natural gas well permit data to compare healthcare utilization in counties with unconventional drilling within one kilometer of a public groundwater source to those with drilling farther away from their public groundwater source. I find that the increases in healthcare utilization are 13 percent larger in counties with drilling near a water source when compared to counties with drilling farther away. This result not only suggests that the increases in utilization are not likely driven by compositional changes, but also that groundwater contamination may serve as a primary pathway for unconventional drilling pollution exposure. [Working Paper]