Labor Market Conditions and Military Enlistment

Senior Thesis

This paper addresses the question of how local labor markets affect military enlistment across each state. Hitherto studies have focused on the relationship between national unemployment and military enlistment, disregarding geographical heterogeneity which may cause one part of the country to react stronger than others. I develop a new way of thinking about who enlists and why using a cohort-based identification strategy.

MilitaryFixed EffectsUnemploymentLabor Market

StataR
Estimating the Black-White Parity in Returns to Education

Honors Paper

This is a very short paper that tries to measure the Black-White parity in returns to education. This paper seeks to find precise estimates for different returns to education using an extended Mincer equation. I group workers by their commuting zones, which is the best way to measure local economies to include both metropolitan and agricultural centers. This short empirical project uses nonparametric estimation techniques to uncover the difference in returns to education by demographics.

Mincer Human CapitalEducationNonparametricLabor Market

StataR
Using a Fuzzy Regression Discontinuity a Continuous Treatment Effect

With Haitian Xie

I worked as a research assistant for Haitian Xie, who devised a new way to identify causality using regression discontinuity (RD). Standard fuzzy RDs use a binary treatment to measure the treatment effect, however Xie devised a novel model for continuous treatment variables. We apply this model to analyze how one's distance from each time zone border affects time use.

DiscontinuitySemiparametricTime UseSpatial

StataRArcGIS
Income Tax Analysis Using County Level Data

With Dr. Christy Caridi

I study wealth disparities based on income tax data from the IRS. We find results consistent with previous years' analyses. Richer counties tend to pay much more in capital gains taxes, for example. We also find that richer counties had a larger difference in taxes paid from the previous year, indicating that the average incomes in those counties grew faster than incomes in poorer counties.

TaxesIncome inequalityIRS

PythonExcel