WORKING PAPERS
Who Watches the Watchers? How "Copaganda" Affects Police, Communities, and Viewers. [Paper]
Abstract: Television shows with police protagonists portray a world where criminals are nearly always apprehended. In reality, crimes mostly go unsolved and police officers infrequently make arrests. I find that when police are followed by reality television cameras, arrests for low-level, victimless crimes increase by 20 percent. These arrests do not meaningfully improve public safety and come at the cost of the local public’s confidence. I then show that these shows improve non-constituent viewer attitudes towards the police. The results are consistent with “copaganda” shows inflating trust in police nationally while subjecting constituents to harsher but not more effective enforcement.Bias-Motivated Updating in the Labor Market. [Paper] [Part I Survey] [Part II Survey] [Part II Follow-Up Survey]
Abstract: In the canonical economics literature on discrimination, it is assumed that statistical discrimination based on inaccurate beliefs will not persist since agents have clear incentives to update as Bayesians based on accurate information. However, if beliefs about group productivity are driven by bias rather than by an agnostic lack of information, agents may be resistant to updating in the face of accurate information that contradicts stereotypes. In an online labor market experiment, I find that employers’ response to information about the labor market productivity of Black and White workers is a function of their implicit biases.WORKS IN PROGRESS
Background Check Adjudication & Fair Chance Hiring. (with Amanda Agan & David Autor)
Sticky Stereotypes: Manager Identity & the Workplace. (with Anna Gifty Opoku-Agyeman)
POLICY RESEARCH PAPERS
Council of Economic Advisers (2014-16)
Inequality in Early Childhood and Effective Public Policy Interventions (2016 Economic Report of the President, Chapter 4)
The Long-term Decline in Prime-age Male Labor Force Participation (June 2016) & accompanying voxEU article
Economic Costs of Youth Disadvantage and High-Return Opportunities for Change (July 2015)
Wellesley College (2014)
A Decade Later: An Evaluation of the Longer-Term Impacts of a Honduran Conditional Cash Transfer