Profile
I am an applied micro-economist working at the intersection of labor and development economics. My research investigates early childhood education, fertility, and labor force participation. I study how the market and policy environments of these decisions determine poverty and socio-economic inequality. The subjects of my current projects are poor women and their children, either in the United States or in developing countries. Development economics usually focuses on countries other than the United States. However, a significant fraction of American women and their children live in poverty. For example, Louisiana’s current maternal mortality rate is 58 per 100,000 live births. This rate is almost identical to the average maternal mortality rate in the Middle East and North Africa, which contain countries considered underdeveloped by several measures. Commonalities in the development of children and the decision-making of poor individuals permit a cohesive agenda, studying subjects who live in different contexts but face similar constraints and scarcities.
