Selected Projects

‘Product-market power and minimum wage incidence: Surplus redistribution across wages, margins, and employment,’ Working Paper.
Examines how product-market power shapes firms’ responses to minimum wage increases. The findings suggest that higher-markup industries absorb wage-floor increases through a combination of stronger wage gains, weaker employment growth, and reduced margins, consistent with redistribution of economic surplus from firms toward workers. 

‘Occupational reallocation and real-wage dynamics: Crisis-dependent composition bias in the United States, 1982–2025,’ Working Paper.
Shows that changes in occupational composition can make aggregate real earnings appear more countercyclical by shifting employment toward jobs with different skill requirements during downturns. The paper finds that this composition bias is concentrated in unusually disruptive episodes, particularly the COVID-era labor-market transition, rather than being a stable feature of ordinary business cycles.

‘From announced jobs to feasible jobs: Staffing feasibility in place-based economic development policy,’ Working Paper.
TDevelops a framework for evaluating whether local labor markets can realistically staff subsidized economic development projects, rather than judging projects solely by announced employment. The paper shows how staffing feasibility can inform incentive screening, workforce planning, milestone design, and fiscal-risk assessment.

‘When graduate earnings become an accountability metric: Administrative source sensitivity in ED and Census PSEO data,’ Working Paper.
Compares program-level graduate earnings reported by the Department of Education and Census PSEO and finds systematic differences despite strong agreement in their relative rankings. The paper argues that policymakers should audit source definitions, timing, geography, aggregation, and other measurement choices before using graduate earnings to sanction, close, or publicly evaluate higher-education programs.