Ph.D. Job Market
2026-27 Job Market Candidates
Shirley Cai
Areas of Interest: Health Economics, Labor Economics, Health Care Provider Behavior.
Job Market Paper: "Medical School Environments and Physician Treatment Styles" (joint with Ian McCarthy)
JMP Summary
This paper studies the impact of medical school on treatment decisions where cardiologists have considerable discretion: the usage of cardiac catheterization in partial-blockage heart attack cases. Using a mover design, we find that a 10 percentage-point increase in cath lab exposure during training increases later catheterization usage by 0.58 percentage points. This effect is not mediated by medical school rank and, together with peer effects, compounds into a 1.5 long-run multiplier on per-cardiologist cath rates.
Advisors: Ian McCarthy (chair), Matt Grennan, Sara Markowitz
Ka Yan Cheng
Areas of Interest: Econometric Theory, Machine Learning, Semiparametric Estimation.
Job Market Paper: "Cross-Validation in Debiased Machine Learning"
JMP Summary
This paper studies cross-validation in debiased machine learning (DML) for choosing the tuning parameters of the primary nuisance (an outcome regression γ₀) and the debiasing nuisance (the Riesz representer α₀). To ensure valid inference, DML places a joint rate requirement on the estimation errors of γ₀ and α₀. The feasibility of attaining the required product rate depends on the joint complexity of the two. In this paper, we study cross-validation for ridge-regularized estimators of the two nuisances on a shared, ill-conditioned, growing dictionary. We characterize the boundary at which the n⁻¹/² product-rate condition is achievable in terms of how fast the growing dictionary can approximate both nuisances. We then propose theory-driven feasible candidate sets for both the dictionary dimensions and the ridge penalties and formally justify the use of separate cross-validation in DML based on these sets. In particular, we develop an oracle inequality for the resulting estimation risk. Our simulation results confirm these findings.
Advisors: Zheng Fang (chair), Florian Gunsilius, Esfandiar Maasoumi, Alejandro Sánchez-Becerra, Pedro Sant'Anna
Wonjun Choi
Areas of Interest: Econometrics Theory, Causal Inference, Machine Learning.
Job Market Paper: "Nonparametric Estimation and Inference in Affine Conditional Moment Restriction Models"
JMP Summary
Conditional moment restriction (CMR) models provide a flexible framework for structural and reduced-form analysis. This paper develops a general framework for nonparametric estimation and inference in affine CMR models. We build on the sieve minimum distance framework, while allowing for modern machine learning methods in the first stage to accommodate flexible estimation of the conditional moment with many instrumental variables. We provide a Wald statistic for testing smooth functionals and a Gaussian coupling of our sieve coefficients, which can be used for various inference problems.
Advisors: Zheng Fang (chair), Florian Gunsilius, Esfandiar Maasoumi, Pedro Sant'Anna
Michaela Philip
Areas of Interest: Health Economics, Urban Economics, Economic History.
Job Market Paper: "Disparate Protective Effects of Residential Zoning"
JMP Summary
Comprehensive zoning ordinances have been a feature of major American cities for well over a century, and households zoned for residential use have enjoyed durable protection from industrial influences and dropping property values. Using newly digitized zoning maps of Atlanta, Louisville, and Little Rock, I find highway construction was less likely in areas zoned for residential use from 1940 to 1959. However, I find that this protection diminishes for Black neighborhoods in areas highly suitable for highway placement.
Advisors: Ian McCarthy (co-chair), Maggie Jones (co-chair), Chris Hansman, Chris Karbownik.
Hannah Pitzer
Areas of Interest: Health Economics, Mental Health, Risky Behavior and Substance Use.
Job Market Paper: “Crossing State Lines: Licensure Compacts, Provider Mobility, and Mental Health”
JMP Summary
Despite the high prevalence of mental illness, many Americans live in areas with an insufficient supply of mental health professionals. Interstate licensure compacts aim to address provider shortages by reducing barriers to practicing across state lines. This study examines the effects of the Interstate Medical Licensure Compact (IMLC) and Psychology Interjurisdictional Compact (PSYPACT) on self-reported mental health, antidepressant prescribing, and suicide rates. Leveraging staggered compact adoption across states, I find no significant evidence that adoption improves mental health outcomes, suggesting that reducing licensing barriers alone may be insufficient to improve population mental health.
Advisors: Sara Markowitz (chair), Matt Grennan, Ian McCarthy
Alessia Scudiero
Areas of Interest: Macroeconomics, Fiscal Policy, Monetary-Fiscal Interactions.
Job Market Paper: "How Costly is Fiscal Stimulus?"
JMP Summary
This paper quantifies how much each dollar of fiscal stimulus costs in future taxes — the present value of fiscal adjustment — depending on the state of the economy at the time of implementation. I build a medium scale New Keynesian model with household heterogeneity, public sector dynamics and downward nominal wage rigidity and estimate it with Bayesian methods on U.S. data from 1960 to 2026. I find that the present value fiscal adjustment is above the face value of the stimulus in almost every quarter, meaning there is no fiscal free lunch. Stimulus was most costly in the 1970s oil crisis and Covid, with fiscal adjustment peaking at $1.06 and $1.07 per dollar in 1975Q1 and 2021Q1 respectively, and least costly during the Great Recession, at $0.99 in 2009Q1.
Advisors: Elena Pesavento (co-chair), Julio Andres Blanco (co-chair), Kaiji Chen, Kurt Lunsford, Juan Rubio-Ramirez, Vivian Yue.
Shabnam Shahrezaei
Areas of Interest: Macroeconomics, Public Finance, Labor Economics.
Job Market Paper: "Married to the Rules: Social Security, Labor Supply, and Welfare Inequality”
JMP Summary
Social Security pays spousal and survivor benefits, which are based on a spouse’s earnings record. Black women have less access to these benefits and receive smaller amounts conditional on access because of differences in marital histories and spouse earnings. I combine micro-level evidence with a structural life-cycle model to evaluate how these benefits affect welfare and labor supply among Black and White households. I find that spousal benefits discourage married women’s participation more than survivor benefits do. Moreover, these benefits reduce labor-force participation more among White married women than among Black married women. Replacing spousal benefits with higher own-worker benefits raises average welfare for both racial groups, with larger gains for Black households. In contrast, replacing survivor benefits with higher own-worker benefits increases welfare only for White households. Black households’ welfare declines because they value these benefits more due to higher widowhood risk and shorter life expectancy. The results indicate that shifting resources from spousal to own-worker benefits while preserving survivor benefits would reduce racial welfare inequality.
Advisors: Kaiji Chen (co-chair), Karen Kopecky (co-chair), David McMillon, Tao Zha
Nathan Williams
Areas of Interest: Growth, Urban Economics, and Spatial Economics.
Job Market Paper: "Growth and Urban Geography"
JMP Summary
How much do spillovers between neighborhoods contribute to income differences across cities? I develop a dynamic model in which housing costs and neighborhood appeal shape where households live, while spillovers from higher-income residents influence income growth in nearby neighborhoods. Using data from 25 U.S. metropolitan areas, I estimate how these spillovers depend on neighborhood incomes and road travel times and construct counterfactuals to quantify the contribution of neighborhood spillovers to long-run city incomes. I show that cross-neighborhood spillovers make within-city geography consequential, as they translate differences in the placement of neighborhoods and their spatial connections into long-run income differences across cities.
Advisors: Nelson Lind (chair), David McMillon, Tao Zha
Lucie Xu
Areas of Interest: Consumer Privacy, Economics of Information, Industrial Organization, Game Theory.
Job Market Paper: "Privacy Regulation and Optimal Product Design"
JMP Summary
This paper studies how privacy regulation shapes a seller’s product design. In a circular city environment, the firm chooses a product design before observing a noisy signal of a consumer’s preferences and setting a personalized price. Privacy regulation determines the informativeness of this signal and limits the firm’s ability to target consumers. I show that the seller’s optimal product design responds non-monotonically to privacy: greater privacy can induce either broader or more niche products, depending on how it interacts with the firm’s pricing incentives. I then examine the resulting implications for consumer welfare.
Advisors: Teddy Kim (chair), In-Koo Cho, Daniel Fershtman