About Me

I am an assistant professor in the Department of Economics and faculty affiliate of the Murphy Institute at Tulane University. I received my Ph.D. in economics from the University of California, Irvine in 2019. My current research focuses on three areas at the intersection of political economy, urban economics, and public economics:

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• Political economy of migration.​

  • ​Much of my research focuses on the economics and politics of migration, both at origin and at destination, as well as long-run spatial equilibria.

  • My recent paper published in the Economic Journal examines how Czechoslovakia's expulsion of 3 million Germans after World War II mattered for its subsequent economic development.​​​​​​

• Culture and institutions.

  • Various cultural and institutional forces inform economic decision-making and policy. Much of my work examines the interactions between economics, culture, and institutions.

  • My recent paper in the Quarterly Journal of Economics with Sam Bazzi, Andreas Ferrara, Martin Fiszbein, and Thomas Pearson examines how mass migration by White Southerners transformed America’s cultural landscape and hastened partisan realignment in the 20th century.

• Spatial data and methods.

  • Urban and development economists, especially economic historians, commonly deal with issues of data availability. A core part of my research agenda is the development of novel datasets as well as methods for harmonizing data across spatial units of analysis.

 

As an instructor, I teach courses in advanced microeconomics, political economy, game theory, and mathematical economics. In my free time, I enjoy making electronic music, working on house projects, and spending time with my wife Amy, our kids Camille and Dean, our cat Arthur, and our dog Cody.