I am a sixth-year PhD candidate in Economics at the University of Virginia.
My research in urban and public economics examines how state and federal policies affect local governments and the
interactions between local fiscal and land use policies. My work has been supported by the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy.
Local land use regulations shape not only how much housing is built but also its composition. I show that the mobile home share of detached homes quadruples at municipal boundaries, from roughly 2% to over 8%, suggesting that city regulations restrict mobile homes. Consistent with differential municipal regulation, the gap in price between manufactured and site-built homes is roughly $6,900 smaller inside cities. I develop a sufficient statistics framework to assess these distortions in the composition of the housing stock. The framework leverages a choice model over housing types where cities impose an implicit tax on mobile homes. I estimate the key statistics using a boundary difference-in-discontinuities design that compares outcomes across housing types and sides of the boundary. I then map these statistics to two structural parameters: the implicit regulatory tax and the elasticity of substitution between mobile and site-built homes. The model implies a high elasticity of substitution between the two types, so a modest regulatory tax reduces the share of mobile homes in cities by about 2.6 percentage points. Municipal land use regulations contribute to both the ruralization and small market share of mobile homes.
State Law, Local Finances, and Housing Markets: The Uneven Effects of Flat Fees
The average size of new single-family homes grew by over 40% between 1985 and 2014. I argue that this trend is explained by land use regulations which act as fixed costs for developers. Because small homes are relatively less profitable, increasing regulation differentially affects the development decision, increasing the average size of the remaining projects. Using variation in fixed costs from development impact fees, I confirm these predictions and find that fees alone can explain roughly 15% of the increase in average sizes over the period.
When Can Government Regulate Itself? Tax Earmarks and the Composition of Government Spending
States impose earmarking requirements on local governments that restrict how revenue from certain taxes can be spent. I show that such earmarks are highly effective at raising spending on the designated category even when earmarked revenues are small, violating standard models of government and voter behavior that assume tax revenues are fungible. I argue that bargaining between government agencies is responsible for the effectiveness of earmarks. In support of this theory, I show that earmarks have the largest effects in large, county governments with greater scope for conflict between interest groups.
Retailer Congestion and The Timing of Transfer Payments
We use granular geolocation data and multiple empirical strategies to document that congestion is a pervasive feature of brick-and-mortar retail. Retailers do not adjust prices to reduce congestion. Instead, they invest in extra capacity in order to meet demand during the busiest periods, furthering urban sprawl.
Municipal Zoning and the Geography of Mobile Homes (Job Market Paper)
