Current research projects
I am currently working on several projects that examine inequality, economic development, or both. Below are brief descriptions of some of the projects I am most excited about. Please feel free to contact me if you would like more information.
The Economic Consequences of Right to Work
How do Right to Work laws influence economic outcomes? In this project, I assess individual-level consequences of Right to Work laws using a half-century of wage information from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics.
Subnational Inequality Divergence
How have inequality levels across local labor markets in the subnational United States changed over the past eight decades? In this study, I examine inequality divergence, or the inequality of inequalities. While divergence trends of central tendencies such as per capita income have been well documented, less is known about the descriptive trends or contributing mechanisms for inequality. In this study, I construct wage inequality measures in 722 local labor markets covering the entire contiguous United States across 22 waves of Census and American Community Survey data from 1940-2019 to assess the historical trends of inequality divergence. I apply variance decomposition and counterfactual techniques to develop main conclusions. Inequality divergence follows a u-shaped pattern, declining through 1990 but with contemporary divergence at as high a level as any time in the past 80 years. Early era convergence occurred broadly and primarily worked to reduce interregional differences, whereas modern inequality divergence operates through a combination of novel mechanisms, most notably through highly unequal urban areas separating from other labor markets. Overall, results show geographical fragmentation of inequality underneath overall inequality growth in recent years, highlighting the fundamental importance of spatial trends for broader stratification outcomes.
The Unions of these Happy States: Deunionization and Happiness Inequality in the United States
Do labor unions influence the happiness of workers? While stratification research agrees that unions positively affect worker economic wellbeing and reduce inequality, and while happiness studies agree that economic inequality and reduced relative economic standing decrease happiness, whether the decline of labor unions has influenced change in happiness over time is unknown. I draw on theories of relative deprivation, status comparison, and the moral economy to develop expectations linking union decline directly and indirectly to change in happiness. I test expectations by merging data from the Current Population Survey and the General Social Survey between years 1972 and 2018. Results shows that labor unions positively affect happiness, independent of economic and demographic conditions.
