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PUBLICATIONS and 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.
Agricultural Technological Change, Female Earnings, and Fertility: Evidence from Brazil. VoxDev
The Economic Journal [link]
​I study how bias in agricultural technological change affects labor market opportunities and fertility in a modern developing country context. Exploiting plausibly exogenous variation in the adoption of genetically engineered soy across municipalities in Brazil, I show that these technologies reduced female earnings and employment in agriculture, without reallocation of female labor into other sectors. Further, this technology adoption increased fertility, due to increases in overall household earnings and substitution effects driven by the reduction in female earnings and employment. These results suggest that, contrary to historical experience, technological progress in modern developing countries may not improve female labor market opportunities or contribute to fertility decline, unless substitution effects are negative and sufficiently large.
Every Day is Earth Day: Evidence on the Long-term Impact of Environmental Activism (with Daniel Hungerman). Le Monde
AEJ: Applied Economics [link]
We explore the importance of activism in the context of Earth Day. We use variation in weather to study the long-term effects of the original Earth Day on attitudes, environmental outcomes, and children's health. Unusually bad weather in a community on April 22, 1970, is associated 10 to 20 years later with weaker support for the environment, particularly among those who were school-aged in 1970. Bad weather on Earth Day is also associated with higher levels of carbon monoxide in the air and greater risk of congenital abnormalities in infants born in the following decades. These results indicate a long-lasting and localized effect of Earth Day, and show that there can be benefits to voluntary activity that would be impossible to identify until years after the volunteering occurs.
Religion and Demography: Papal Influences on Fertility (With Lakshmi Iyer and Paloma Moyano). Notre Dame Population Analytics Working Paper 2025-001
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.
Industrialization, Religion, and Fertility Decline in 1800s France (Draft Available Upon Request) Presented at the 19th World Economic History Conference in Paris and the Brown University Growth Lab
I examine how religious norms mediate the impact of early industrialization on fertility decline in France. Exploiting plausibly exogenous variation in the adoption of steam engines and mechanized cotton spinning during the first phase of the Industrial Revolution, I find that industrialization reduces marital fertility in both cases, but only in regions with lower levels of religiosity. This effect is driven by structural transformation and human capital formation, in line with Unified Growth Theory. These findings emphasize the interaction between economic incentives and cultural constraints in shaping demographic transitions.
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]
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