Research
Risky Personal Investments in Human Capital: Undocumented Student Attendance Under Threat of Deportation:
I examine how undocumented immigrants respond to the threat of deportation by contrasting daily attendance among undocumented Hispanic, documented Hispanic, and white students. I find that undocumented Hispanic students are acutely responsive to the roll- out of a state anti-immigration law, with large absenteeism on days where the law overcomes court challenges, and increased withdrawals from school immediately following the law clearing federal court. Such laws may be particularly salient, as Hispanic absenteeism is unresponsive to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) operations at the local, state, and regional levels.
I examine how undocumented immigrants respond to the threat of deportation by contrasting daily attendance among undocumented Hispanic, documented Hispanic, and white students. I find that undocumented Hispanic students are acutely responsive to the roll- out of a state anti-immigration law, with large absenteeism on days where the law overcomes court challenges, and increased withdrawals from school immediately following the law clearing federal court. Such laws may be particularly salient, as Hispanic absenteeism is unresponsive to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) operations at the local, state, and regional levels.
Carp, Cows, and Kudzu: The consequences of creating markets around invasive species
Is it possible to use markets to push invasive species to eradication? While species like kudzu are at the intersection of low marketability and high damages, there are species like silver carp and wild boar that have more marketable characteristics that open the door to the possibility to "engineering the tragedy of the commons." For this to occur, the species must be below a critical threshold, "X-critical", which we solve for using a dynamic harvesting model that includes not only the external damages the invasive species exerts, but also it's minimum viable population. Below this "X-critical", it is optimal for a social planner to leverage markets and push this species to eradication. Problematically, most invasive species are above this level. Thus, a social planner must solve the opposite of the tragedy of the commons problem by encouraging harvests instead of limiting them. Here we examine two policies: harvest incentives (bounties) and “rebranding” noting their cost-effectiveness of pushing the species back to a socially-efficient state.
Is it possible to use markets to push invasive species to eradication? While species like kudzu are at the intersection of low marketability and high damages, there are species like silver carp and wild boar that have more marketable characteristics that open the door to the possibility to "engineering the tragedy of the commons." For this to occur, the species must be below a critical threshold, "X-critical", which we solve for using a dynamic harvesting model that includes not only the external damages the invasive species exerts, but also it's minimum viable population. Below this "X-critical", it is optimal for a social planner to leverage markets and push this species to eradication. Problematically, most invasive species are above this level. Thus, a social planner must solve the opposite of the tragedy of the commons problem by encouraging harvests instead of limiting them. Here we examine two policies: harvest incentives (bounties) and “rebranding” noting their cost-effectiveness of pushing the species back to a socially-efficient state.
