This paper investigates whether firms donate to political campaigns in order to influence supply in local housing markets. Using new data on campaign donors of U.S. mayoral candidates and a regression discontinuity design, I uncover three findings. Consistent with political favors, connection to the mayor causes residential development firms to sell more new housing units. Favors to donors shape local housing supply, since mayors attracting more donations from residential developers double permits for new housing construction. But differences in housing policy between mayors are empirically more important than favors for determining local housing supply.
I am an Economist at Amazon.
I earned my PhD in Applied Economics at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania in 2022. Before graduate school I was a Senior Research Analyst at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. I earned my BA from Columbia University in Economics-Mathematics in 2014.
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RESEARCH
Returns to Political Contributions in Local Housing Markets
Accepted, Review of Economics and Statistics
2021 Urban Economics Association Co-Winner of Best Student Paper
Abstract
The Influence of Police Unions in Local Elections. Evidence from U.S. Cities Spending and Performance
(with Edoardo Teso and Maria Carreri)
Accepted, American Political Science Review
Abstract
Despite growing attention to local policies governing public safety issues, and mounting reports of police union spending to local candidates, the role of police unions in local politics remains understudied. We address this gap by assem- bling a novel, large-scale dataset on campaign finance in U.S. mayoral elections, covering 2,303 races across 1,073 cities from 2001 to 2019. We document that po- lice unions frequently donate to mayoral candidates—especially in mid-sized and large cities—targeting likely winners and incumbents, and without displaying clear partisan bias. Using a within-city design that accounts for heterogeneous treatment effects in presence of staggered treatment timing, we find that the elec- tion of a police union–backed mayor leads to an expansion in police department size. However, despite additional resources, police performance weakly worsens in these cities, consistent with unions’ political support reducing incentives for effort and accountability.
(with Coleman Bazelon, Yong Paek, and Paroma Sanyal)
Abstract
Local authorities are often involved in determining the competitive landscape of important services. In particular, Section 253 of the Telecommunications Act, in part, states that a local authority cannot 'prohibit or have the effect of prohibiting the ability of any entity to provide any interstate or intrastate telecommunications service.' Our paper will analyze how a local authority’s attempt to introduce competition (through subsidization of an ISP) in a high fixed cost and advanced technology industry, such as the broadband internet market, could actually worsen competition by restricting incumbents’ ability to compete and provide services. Our analysis will calibrate a simple model of intertemporal entry and competition of the broadband internet market to anonymized proprietary data obtained from a cable broadband provider. Our data consists of information on network buildout costs at various levels of the network, from the digging of the conduit network, to the last mile drop conduit. Our model will map out the space of a set of structural parameters where various competitive equilibria arise. Key parameters will reflect important aspects of the broadband internet market. Of particular interest are aspects that local authorities guide policies over, for example, the technological compatibility of subsidized infrastructure, fair access to subsidized infrastructure, and the granting of rights-of-way (ROW) to market participants. With the model’s parameter space mapped out we will discuss the considerations a local authority must consider before subsidizing an entrant ISP. Our research is of particular relevance to contemporary communications policy as access to affordable high-speed internet becomes an integral part of our lives, and federal, state and local authorities are looking for ways to achieve this.
(with Rafael Pucci and Rafael Tavares)
Abstract
This paper evaluates whether homeownership alleviates poverty by exploiting a large-scale affordable housing program in Brazil. Linking applicants to administrative data on formal employment, we investigate the impact homeownership has on labor supply, earnings, mobility, occupation, and formalization. Becoming a homeowner increases hours worked and formal employment, suggesting wealth effects in this setting do not, on net, dampen labor supply. However, wages and earnings of new homeowners fall. The likely mechanism is homeownership programs accelerate formalization. New homeowners transition to public sector employment, and, consistent with the homevoter hypothesis, increase political participation.
(with Michael Abrahams, Tobias Adrian, Richard Crump, and Emanuel Moench)
Journal of Monetary Economics
Abstract
Inflation-indexed and nominal yield curves capture investors׳ expectations of real short rates and inflation as well as their required compensation for bearing liquidity, inflation, and real interest rate risk. We estimate an affine term structure model that allows us to decompose real and nominal bond yields into these components and use the model to study the transmission of monetary policy. The model decompositions imply that the Federal Reserve׳s announcements of LSAPs lowered yields primarily by reducing real term premia. Changes in real term premia also account for the strong response of long-term real forward rates to federal funds rate surprises.