I am an associate professor of Risk and Insurance at the Wisconsin School of Business. My fields are health economics, public finance, and industrial organization. Much of my work studies the intended and unintended consequences of social insurance programs, with a focus on Social Security and health insurance.

The best way to contact me is by email.

Here is a link to my CV.

Working papers

  1. Direct and Indirect Effects of Vaccines: Evidence from COVID-19 in Schools. With Seth M. Freedman, Kosali I. Simon, and Coady Wing. October, 2022.
  2. Racial differences in retail prices paid.  With R. Andrew Butters and Boyoung Seo. September, 2022.
  3. Why do retail prices fall during seasonal demand peaks? With R. Andrew Butters and Boyoung Seo. February, 2022. Revisions requested, RAND Journal of Economics.
  4. Exposure to Cigarette Taxes as a Teenager and the Persistence of Smoking into Adulthood. With Andrew Friedson, Moyan Li, Katherine Meckel, and Daniel I. Rees. September, 2021.

Published and forthcoming papers

  1. How do national chains respond to local cost shocks? With R. Andrew Butters and Boyoung Seo. American Economic Review, 112(5), May 2022, 1737-72.
  2. Cigarette Taxes, Smoking, and Health in the Long Run. With Andrew Friedson, Moyan Li, Katherine Meckel, and Daniel I. Rees. April, 2022. Accepted , Journal of Public Economics
  3. Financial Transaction Costs Reduce Benefit Take-Up: Evidence from Zero-Premium Health Plans in Colorado. With Coleman Drake, Sih-Ting Cai, and David Anderson. January, 2022. SSRN Version. Accepted, Journal of Health Economics
  4. Did the Opioid Crisis Dampen Post-Recession Employment Recovery? Evidence from Labor Market Flows. With Anita Mukherjee and Hoyoung Yoo. November, 2021. Accepted, Journal of Human Resources.
  5. Blind Disclosure. With Aaron Kolb, Marilyn Pease, and Joshua Quick. December, 2021. Forthcoming, AEJ: Microeconomics.
  6. What can we learn about SARS-CoV-2 prevalence from testing and hospital data? With Nir Menachemi, Peter Embi, and Coady Wing. January, 2022. Accepted, Review of Economics and Statistics (Longer version with more results.) Replication materials.
  7. How do insurance firms respond to financial risk-sharing regulations? With Khoa Vu, Tsan-Yao Huang, and Pinar Karaca-Mandic. Health Economics, 30(6), June 2021: 1443-1460.
  8. Can policy affect initiation of addictive substance use? Evidence from opioids. With Alex Hollingsworth, Thuy Nguyen, and Kosali Simon. Journal of Health Economics, 76, March 2021.
  9. Using Non-Linear Budget Sets to Estimate Extensive Margin Responses: Method and Evidence from the Social Security Earnings Test. With Alex Gelber, Damon Jones, and Jae Song. AEJ: Applied Economics, 13(4), September, 2021: 150-193. Replication materials.
  10. Does the individual mandate affect insurance coverage? Evidence from tax returns. With Brad Heim and Ithai Lurie. AEJ: Economic Policy, 13(2), May 2021: 378-407. Replication materials.
  11. The Employment Effects of the Social Security Earnings Test. With Alex Gelber, Damon Jones, and Jae Song. September, 2019. Forthcoming, Journal of Human Resources. Replication materials.
  12. Same Game, Different Names: Cream-skimming in the Post-ACA Individual Health Insurance Market. With Jean Abraham, Coleman Drake, and Kosali Simon. Inquiry, 57 (2020): 1-9.
  13. Estimating Earnings Adjustment Frictions: Method and Evidence from the Social Security Earnings Test. AEJ: Applied Economics, 12(1), January 2020: 1-31 (Lead Article). With Alex Gelber and Damon Jones. Replication materials.
  14. Intertemporal substitution in Health Care Demand: Evidence from the RAND Health Insurance Experiment. With Haizhen Lin. July, 2019. Journal of Public Economics, 175: 29-43.
  15. Why Do HMOs spend Less? Patient Selection, Physician Price Sensitivity, and Prices.  Journal of Public Economics. 2018, 168: 146-161.
  16. The Health Insurance Marketplaces. JAMA (Viewpoint). Available online July 9, 2018.
  17. Demand for Health Insurance Marketplace Plans was Highly Elastic in 2014-2015. Economics Letters. 2017, 159: 69-73. With Jean Abraham, Coleman Drake, and Kosali Simon.
  18. The New Stylized Facts About Income and Subjective Well-Being. Emotion, 12(6) 1181-1187, December 2012. With Betsey Stevenson and Justin Wolfers.
  19. Subjective Well-Being, Income, Economic Development and Growth. Development Challenges in a Post-Crisis World, World Bank ABCDE Conference Volume, 2010. With Betsey Stevenson and Justin Wolfers.