"Do Human Capital Adjustments Protect Youths from Structural Change?"
Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas Working Paper No. 2411 | EdWorkingPaper: 24 -1113 | Previously posted as "Human Capital Adjustments and Labor Market Resilience: Evidence from Linked Education and Earnings Data"
Funding: 2022 AERA Dissertation Grant
Abstract: Structural changes to labor demand can have lasting consequences on the employment and earnings of workers in affected industries and geographies. However, individuals coming of age may avoid similar fates if they internalize salient changes to the returns to education and adjust their human capital investments. This paper examines how exposure to structural labor demand shocks during youth
affects human capital and later-life earnings. Using Texas administrative data and variation in exposure to import competition, I show that the average affected student made modest educational adjustments and experienced minimal earnings protection. However, students unbound by credit constraints or given salient signals of rising returns to education were 11 – 24% more likely to attend community college, were 22 – 43% more likely to earn an associate’s degree, and were shielded from earnings losses. These results suggest that educational adjustments can buffer against structural change.
with Patrick Flynn | Journal of Public Economics (published version)
Abstract: The Clean Water Act (CWA) provided $153 billion (2014$) to municipal governments for wastewater treatment upgrades. We leverage variation in the timing of grant receipt with a difference-in-differences design to estimate the effect of CWA grants on local spending. CWA grants caused a dollar-for-dollar increase in sewerage capital spending up to the amount needed to cover the costs of capital upgrades newly mandated by the CWA. After municipalities met these capital requirements, or if the capital mandate was not binding, they reduced their own spending on sewerage capital in response to grant receipt. Municipalities then redistributed grant money to local residents by reducing water bills. On average, each dollar of grant revenue caused a $0.45 increase in sewerage capital spending. Dividing previously estimated benefit to cost ratios of CWA grants by this estimate suggests that each CWA grant dollar that municipalities spent on sewerage capital generated an average return of $1.01.
"Turning around Schools (and Neighborhoods?): School Improvement Grants and Gentrification"
with Cameron Friday | Economics of Education Review (published version) | 2023 Economics of Education Review Best Paper Award | Replication files
Abstract: Most funding intended to close gaps in K-12 education targets schools, rather than students directly. We investigate whether household sorting in response to changes in K-12 school funding inhibits spending from reaching targeted students with a case study in Metro-Nashville Public Schools of the School Improvement Grant (SIG) program, which invested $7 billion in the nation's lowest-achieving schools between 2009 and 2016. Using a boundary-discontinuity difference-in-differences design and home sales data, we estimate that households were willing to pay more than three times the average per-pupil grant award to live in SIG school zones. Neighborhoods zoned for SIG schools experienced moderate income and racial integration following funding receipt However, evictions in these neighborhoods increased by 35%, and non-white enrollment at SIG schools declined by 15%. Our findings illustrate a major limitation of place-based public good provision: sorting may displace the initially targeted population.
"Student Debt and Housing Wealth"
with Lesley J. Turner, Jeremy Burke, and Juan Saavedra.
"Degrees for GPTs: The Effects of Generative AI on Skills and Schooling"
with Sam Dodini