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PUBLICATIONS
Agricultural Technological Change, Female Earnings, and Fertility: Evidence from Brazil. VoxDev
The Economic Journal [link]
Every Day is Earth Day: Evidence on the Long-term Impact of Environmental Activism (with Daniel Hungerman). AEJ: Applied Economics [link]
Media: Le Monde, Notre Dame News
WORKING PAPERS
Blue Collar Booms and American Mortality: Evidence From the Fracking Revolution (with Paul Shaloka). [pdf] R&R American Journal of Health Economics
We exploit the positive labor demand shocks driven by the fracking boom to investigate whether improvements in economic opportunity reduce mortality. Using variation in geological characteristics amenable to fracking within a difference-in-differences design, we find that the boom reduces overall mortality for working aged adults. We find no robust evidence of reductions in external forms of death, such as suicide. Rather, the reductions are concentrated among more medically treatable causes, such as cardiovascular deaths. Finally, we find evidence of increased health insurance coverage following the boom. Our results suggest that increased access to medical care serves as an important mediator in the relationship between labor market conditions and mortality.
Religion and Demography: Papal Influences on Fertility (With Lakshmi Iyer and Paloma Moyano). [Notre Dame Population Analytics Working Paper 2025-001]
Media: Notre Dame News; Crux
How do social norms affect fertility? Examining the visits of Pope John Paul II to 13 Latin American countries, which reinforced Catholic Church teachings, we find positive long term effects on fertility. These are driven by first births and by those residing in a region that the Pope visited. Papal messaging matters: fertility increases more when the Pope mentions marriage or abortions and contraception, and decreases with condemnations of pre-marital sex. Marriages increase with all three messages. Further, the effects are strongest for those who are less likely to be following Church teachings, such as non-Catholic, wealthier, and educated households.
Within the Calculus of Conscious Choice: Industrialization, Religion, and Fertility Decline in Early 1800s France [link]
I examine how religious norms moderated the impact of early industrialization on fertility decline in France. Using plausibly exogenous variation in the adoption of steam engines and mechanized cotton spinning during the First Industrial Revolution, I find that industrialization reduced marital fertility, but only in less religious regions. This decline was driven by increased human capital formation and structural transformation. These findings show that industrialization was a key driver of the fertility transition, but that its early effects were mediated by prevailing social norms. The results underscore the importance of considering both economic incentives and cultural constraints in shaping demographic change.
WORKS IN PROGRESS
​Aspirations, Beliefs, and Behavior: Evidence from a Randomized Religious Intervention in Western Kenya (With David Murphy, Samuel Bird, and Susan Kilonzo). [link]
​We study how neo-Pentecostal Christianity influences economic behavior through a randomized controlled trial in Kisumu, Kenya. Participants attended workshops at either Pentecostal or mainline churches (Catholic/Anglican), followed by surveys and experiments measuring altruistic and investment behaviors. Both workshop types decreased self-reported self-control and grit while reducing communal economic participation. Notably, Pentecostal messaging led men to increase interest-bearing savings, while increasing women's intrinsic religiosity without a similar increase in savings. These findings suggest that Pentecostalism promotes economic individualism in men and religious individualism in women. Our research contributes to a growing body of literature that has primarily examined the drivers of rapid Pentecostal growth by investigating how this growth may reshape economic behavior in developing economies.