Publications
Need for Speed: Fiber and Student Achievement
Telecommunications Policy, vol 48 (6), 2024. Pre-print version here.
This paper studies the impact of the introduction of fiber broadband in North Carolina, through the lens of student achievement. I link granular data on new fiber construction and advertised download speeds with administrative test score data and local labor market data. Exploiting variation in fiber availability at the census block group level, I implement a difference-in-differences design and find modest effects on educational outcomes, roughly equivalent to lowering class sizes by one student. I show fiber increases local employment and search intensity for supplementary educational materials. Last, I show that increased competition from fiber providers drives quality improvements in other available technology.
Unequal Ground: Oil Booms and Income Inequality in the United States
Economica, vol 91 (363), 2024. with Loujaina Abdelwahed
This paper examines the impact of oil price and quantity shocks on income inequality in the US. Using micro income data, we construct measures of pre-tax money income inequality at the state level for the period 1980 2017. We find that a $10 increase in oil price increases inequality, measured by the ratio of pre-tax income of the 90th percentile to 10th percentile (p90/p10), by 3.8 percentage points in states with high levels of oil endowments per capita. The increase in capital income to households at the top of the distribution drives the observed change in inequality. In addition to price shocks, we study the impact of quantity shocks that arise from oil discoveries. Quantity shocks have no effect on the overall income distribution.
Working Papers
The Distribution of Capital Gains in the United States
with Jacob Robbins and Sam Wylde.
Booming stock, housing, and private business markets have driven large capital gains in the United States, averaging 20% of national income over the past two decades. Using internal IRS tax return data, this paper studies the distribution of these gains, and their contribution to income inequality and tax progressivity. Capital gains are highly concentrated, with 73.6% flowing to the richest 10% and 43.5% to the top 1%. Capital gains raise the top 1% share of income to 21.1%, compared to 18% in their absence. Due to low realization rates, effective tax rates on capital gains are below 5%. Accounting for capital gains reduces the progressivity of the tax system, with essentially flat rates across the Haig-Simons distribution. There is substantial heterogeneity in returns and cap rates across income groups; richer individuals have higher owner and tenant occupied housing returns, higher business cap rates, and lower property tax rates.
The Value of Private Business Wealth in the United States
with Jacob Robbins. Revise and Resubmit at Journal of Public Economics. Download here.
Private companies account for almost half of aggregate sales and profits of the US economy, but valuing them is difficult due to lack of public market data. This paper uses two databases of private business transactions to estimate valuation ratios and applies them to private business aggregates. We estimate aggregate private business wealth of $14.1 trillion in 2018, twice as large as measured in the Financial Accounts. Our estimates of partnership wealth are six times larger than Financial Accounts estimates, which values partnerships at book values with no adjustment from market based multiples.
Bridging the Rural Internet Divide
Download here.
Broadband is a crucial aspect of modern-day economies, however, for many in rural America, access is limited. I exploit discontinuities in subsidy assignment from the Connect America Fund, and employ a Fuzzy Regression Discontinuity design to estimate the effect of subsidies on access. I find subsidies to price cap carriers increases access to 10 Mbps/1 Mbps download-upload broadband by 4.25 percentage points, however, this effect is local around the least-costly eligible areas. Furthermore, I show that the technology, as well as, the the number of providers in targeted regions are unaffected by these subsidies. The results suggest that the subsidy amount may not have been enough to provide universal service for all targeted areas.
Works in Progress
Managing Managers: How well do teams identify manager talent? with Josep Nadal
Labor markets where industry-specific talent is revealed only upon working potentially leads to inefficiently low output and higher wages (Treviö, 2009). In this paper, we estimate the impact of football managers on player skill formation and team success, drawing parallels with the value-added education literature. We link data on players from the 1st and 2nd tiers of five European countries to managers from 2015-2020 and use these tools to produce unbiased estimates of manager quality for a rich set of outcomes while assessing the degree to which top teams recruit top talent. Our preliminary analysis suggests that teams effectively recruit top
talent. Our method provides a data-driven tool for sporting directors to evaluate
the effectiveness of prospective managers.