My research has generally been related to the geographic patterns of intergenerational economic mobility. My main goals are to add to the literature analyzing how economic mobility is determined and how mobility affects other things. I have a strong background in statistics and empirical analysis, and I am working on development my theoretical skills. I hope to continue studying economic mobility in different contexts. I also have been involved in many interdisciplinary, policy-oriented research projects, and I would like to continue doing similar projects.
Dissertation Title: Three Papers Related to Intergenerational Economic Mobility
Topics: Urban economics, labor economics, health economics
2-Minute Job Market Paper:
"Voting for Opportunity: County-Level Economic Mobility and Voting Patterns in US Presidential Elections"
Economic Development Quarterly, 2024
Abstract: Characteristics of sprawl, like decreased social cohesion and lower accessibility to jobs and services, could negatively affect economic opportunity and intergenerational mobility. City-level studies have found mixed results, but neighborhood effects have been largely ignored. This study uses census tract and city-level data in a multilevel model to develop a richer understanding of the scale-dependent relationship between sprawl and intergenerational mobility. The authors found that a 1 standard deviation (SD) increase in sprawl at the tract level is associated with a 0.07 SD decrease in upward economic mobility, while a 1 SD increase in city-level sprawl is associated with a 0.08 SD decrease. Sprawl negatively affects upward intergenerational mobility at the metropolitan level and the census tract level. The negative relationship of economic outcomes to sprawl does not hold for high-income children, indicating that there may be conflicting benefits for different income families. Policy makers should understand these conflicting pressures.
Small Wars & Insurgencies, 2024
Essays in Economic and Business History, 2023
In the early twentieth century, the mining industry was characterized by isolation, dangerous working conditions, employer power, and declining employment. However, miners also enjoyed high earnings, flexible schedules, and company housing. In this article, I explore intergenerational economic mobility for miners’ sons. Using linked full-count US Census data to explore outcomes for miners’ sons compared to other sons, I find that miners’ sons usually do worse than manufacturing workers’ sons but better than farmers’ sons. Successful sons of miners grew up in urban neighborhoods that were mining-dependent, had access to education, and moved from their childhood counties. Sons of miners in the coal industry, which was shrinking, also did worse than sons of miners in the oil industry, which was expanding. This article sheds light on the effect that industry growth and geographic isolation has on intergenerational outcomes.
Applied Geography, 2023
This study examines the mechanisms of spatial variation in intergenerational mobility (IM) in United States (US) counties. We explicitly emphasized the effects of urban space and four aspects of urban sprawl—density, mix of uses, centering, and accessibility—and their interaction with socioeconomic factors. We found that urban sprawl variables did not all affect IM in the same direction, and the magnitude of the effect of one urban sprawl variable depended on other variables. The effects of centering varied: while employment centering negatively affected IM, population centering enhanced IM. Typical livable city indicators of walkability, mixed-use development, and a jobs-housing balance improved IM. Their effects on IM were magnified if either of the other two factors increased. However, the impact of walkability on IM decreased if employment centering increased and vice versa. Urban sprawl variables also indirectly influenced IM through inequality, segregation, social capital, and unemployment. We also found that the Black population share had the largest indirect and total effects on IM, which were spatially stationary across the US, and were mediated by racial segregation, social capital, unemployment, education, and single parenthood. This study has shown that enhancing IM requires more than reducing segregation and increasing density.
Recently, mining employment has been in decline, and these jobs are usually located in remote areas with few other opportunities. Mining employment went through a similar decline almost 100 years ago as technological change improved labor productivity. This study is meant to determine what happened to the children of miners, or children in mining communities, at this critical juncture. Did they have better occupational outcomes than children of parents with other occupations or in other communities? Did different mining communities have different outcomes? I will compare outcomes in different areas, using covariates like average educational attainment, proximity to urban areas, and rate of unionization of the mine, to see why areas have different outcomes. I will use full count Census data for the years between 1880 and 1940, and use the Census Linking Project for linking across time. I expect to find that children of miners are not as well off as children of manufacturers, and that areas with strong institutions like education or unions and areas that are close to cities will have better outcomes.
The purpose of this project is to explore a broad category of workplace hazards. While physical hazards are well-documented in the workplace, mental and emotional hazards are less studied. We will use O*NET data on occupational characteristics and link it with several different health data sources to find out what characteristics lead to lower worker health. This research is related to the production of health literature.
Most historical analysis of time-series economic outcomes is unable to include women because most women marry and change their names. The Utah Population Database is a unique dataset that is able to track women in Utah through their life and connect them with their family characteristics. The goal of our research is to study women's occupational mobility, including how it is related to both origin characteristics, like family size, parent occupation, and parental health/early parental mortality, and lifetime characteristics, like spouse’s occupation, spouse’s health, and number of children.
This is a large interdisciplinary project that includes researchers from many areas, including the Department of Family and Consumer Studies, College of Health, and the School of Business. The idea of the project was to reduce poverty and increase the middle class by encouraging people who did not collect the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) to do so. Preliminary estimates showed that almost 15% of people who were eligible for the EITC did not take it, and these peoples' lives could be greatly benefitted with the extra money. The project tried to connect to people who did not collect the EITC through community health centers. I helped do some preliminary data analysis on who is not collecting the EITC, where they are located, and risk factors for not collecting the refund.
This research was a part of the Department of Economics Economic Evaluation Unit. The Utah Office for Victims of Crime (UOVC) is facing large budget cuts in 2022 and so they hired us to do some cost-benefit analysis on the various services they provide to victims of domestic violence and sexual assault. Unfortunately, there has been very few studies on outcomes for the funded interventions, so our analysis required interviewing Victims of Crime offices from other states and organizations within Utah to get an understanding of best practices in victims of crime assistance. My role was assisting in the interviews of the 30+ organizations that we talked to, analyzing the data from the UOVC on the organizations they fund, and helping to write a report. The report is forthcoming.
This was a one-semester partially-funded RA position in which I updated the Genuine Progress Indicator (GPI) for Utah for the 20 years between 1997 and 2017. The GPI is alternative measure to GDP for economic well-being of an area. The GPI includes several things excluded from GDP, including externalities from inequality and environmental degradation, unpaid work, and leisure time. Data came from over 15 sources at the state and federal level.
This was a one-semester partially-funded RA position in which I gathered and cleaned government data on labor and output by sector for states for the period from 1963 to 2017.
In this 2-semester internship, I helped the Demography Team to estimate population at the Census-tract level for intercensal years in Salt Lake and Utah Counties, the most populous counties in Utah. We mainly did this by gathering information on new housing construction in propriety GIS files and in real estate market reports. These estimates help many people in local business and government with their planning.
I was a paid undergraduate researcher with Dr. Salehi-Isfahani for several semesters. The goal of the project was to study how Iran's development had been dependent on the increased position and education of women in Iran, and how these trends reacted to the many political upsets in Iran over the last 50 years. My job was to read and discuss Dr. Salehi's work, and to analyze health survey data in Afghanistan as a comparison to Iran.