Job market paper

Neighbor Helping Neighbor: Local Giving and the Geography of Charity

Does the decentralized, community funding structure of private charities create a gap between where high-capacity food pantries are located and where resource demand is highest? In this paper, 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 visits allowed per month. Using observed customer behavior, I estimate the value of each food pantry visit based on characteristics such as flexible distribution times and availability of food. I then show that customers in high-income neighborhoods receive higher per-visit benefits than those 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 welfare gains of 4-5% for customers in the lowest-income neighborhoods, equivalent to nearly one additional meal per visit.

Working paper

The Effect of Unconventional Oil and Gas Drilling on Healthcare Utilization: Evidence from Texas

This paper examines the relationship between inpatient healthcare utilization and the entry of unconventional drilling in Texas's Eagle Ford region. Using a staggered difference-in-differences design, I find that inpatient claims for dermatological conditions, perinatal conditions, and pregnancy complications increase following ZCTA-level entry of unconventional drilling relative to not-yet-treated and never-treated ZCTAs. I then construct a novel dataset that combines public groundwater-source information with healthcare claims and well-location data to identify the effect of unconventional drilling near public drinking-water infrastructure. I find that communities with unconventional drilling near a public groundwater source experience greater increases in inpatient claims compared to communities with unconventional drilling farther away, including an aggregate increase of approximately 168 claims per ZCTA-quarter at the five-kilometer threshold. Perinatal conditions and pregnancy complications follow a more localized spatial pattern, with larger estimates at shorter distances from public groundwater sources. These findings suggest that the health consequences of unconventional drilling depend not only on whether drilling occurs, but also on where it is located relative to population-serving infrastructure.

Working paper

Filling the Gap: The Role of Food Pantries for Income-Constrained Adults

This paper examines how the timing of public transfer payments shapes older adults’ use of charitable food assistance. Using individual-level administrative data from a regional food bank covering more than 45,000 full-retirement-age adults, I estimate how food pantry use changes over the Social Security payment cycle. During standard 28-day cycles, pantry use is relatively stable with a slight increase near the end of the payment cycle. During longer 35-day cycles, utilization is concentrated at the beginning and end of the cycle, suggesting that households reallocate pantry visits over the extended interval. These results show that the timing of monthly transfer payments shapes demand for charitable food assistance, particularly when the interval between payments is longer.

Working paper

Abortion Access and Female Sterilization

With Graham Gardner and Sarah Mirrow

The Effects of Restricted Abortion Access on IUDs and Vasectomies: Evidence from Texas

With Bradley Crowe and Graham Gardner

Journal of Health Economics, 2025, 103041.

The New Normal: Grocery Shopping Behavior Changes Before and After the COVID-19 Vaccine

With Michael Conlin, Katherine Harris-Lagoudakis, Seung Yeon Jung, and Hannah Wich

Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy 46(3), 2024, 1241–1264.

Removing Cigarettes from the Shelf: Cigarette Access and Smoker Behavior

With Michael Conlin, Katherine Harris-Lagoudakis, and Seung Yeon Jung

The Effect of Hormone Replacement Therapy on Health and Labor Market Outcomes of Perimenopausal People

With Stacy Dickert-Conlin and Meaghan Roberts