Doctoral Program in Applied Economics PHD CANDIDATES ...

Doctoral Program in Applied Economics

PHD CANDIDATES AVAILABLE FOR POSITIONS IN THE ACADEMIC YEAR 2018-2019

Placement Director: Fernando V. Ferreira Phone: (215) 898-7181 Email: fferreir@wharton.upenn.edu

Graduate Administrator: Diana Broach Phone: (215) 898-7761 Email: dhs@wharton.upenn.edu

Placement Website:

Applied Economics Job Market Candidates 2018-2019

Matthew Davis JMP: "The Distributional Impact of Mortgage Interest Subsidies: Evidence from Variation in State Tax Policies" FIELDS: Real Estate Economics and Finance, Public Finance, Household Finance, Applied Microeconomics, Economics of Education ADVISORS: Fernando Ferreira, Joseph Gyourko, Benjamin Keys, Todd Sinai EMAIL: mattda@wharton.upenn.edu

Jennie Huang JMP: "Transaction Utility and Consumer Choice" FIELDS: Behavioral Economics, Experimental Economics, Applied Microeconomics, Decision Making, Negotiation, Gender ADVISORS: Judd Kessler, Katherine Milkman, Corinne Low, Benjamin Lockwood EMAIL: huangzh@wharton.upenn.edu

MATTHEW S. DAVIS

mattda@wharton.upenn.edu

THE WHARTON SCHOOL, UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA

Placement Director: Fernando Ferreira Graduate Administrator: Diana Broach

fferreir@wharton.upenn.edu dhs@wharton.upenn.edu

215.898.7181 215.898.7761

Office Contact Information 3620 Locust Walk 3301 Steinberg Hall ? Dietrich Hall Philadelphia, PA, 19105 Cell: 860.287.6208

Home Contact Information 1110 Caton Ave Apt. 1C

Brooklyn, NY, 11218

Graduate Studies The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, 2013 to present M.S. in Applied Economics, 2016 Thesis Title: Essays in Housing Markets and Public Finance Expected Ph.D. Completion Date: May 2019

Committee Members and References: Professor Fernando Ferreira (chair) The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania 215.898.7181, fferreir@wharton.upenn.edu

Professor Joseph Gyourko The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania 215.898.3003, gyourko@wharton.upenn.edu

Professor Benjamin Keys The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania 215.746.1253, benkeys@wharton.upenn.edu

Professor Todd Sinai The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania 215.898.5390, sinai@wharton.upenn.edu

Undergraduate Studies A.B. Economics (With Honors), Princeton University, 2009

Teaching and Research Interests Primary: Real Estate Economics and Finance, Public Finance, Household Finance Secondary: Applied Microeconomics, Economics of Education

Research Experience Fall 2016 ? Spring 2018 Summer 2014?Fall 2014 Summer 2011?Spring 2013

Research Assistant, Fernando Ferreira, Wharton Research Assistant, Fernando Ferreira and Joseph Gyourko, Wharton Research Assistant, Roland Fryer, Education Innovation Lab, Harvard

Teaching Experience Spring 2016, Spring 2018

Spring 2012

Housing Markets (Undergraduate and MBA), University of Pennsylvania Teaching Assistant for Professor Joseph Gyourko Education in America (Undergraduate and Masters), Harvard University Teaching Assistant for Professor Roland Fryer

Professional Activities Presentations

Urban Economics Association North America Meeting, 2018; Wharton

Applied Economics Workshop, 2018; Ohio State Real Estate and Housing Conference, 2018

Conferences Attended

NBER Public Economics Program Meeting, 2018; NBER Economics of Education Program Meeting, 2017; National Tax Association Annual Conference, 2017; NBER Summer Institute (Urban Economics and Real Estate), 2017; Price Theory Ph.D. Workshop (University of Chicago), 2016; Conference in Urban and Regional Economics, 2016; Frontiers in Urban Economics, 2015 (Columbia University); AEA Annual Meetings, 2016, 2018

Referee Service

Journal of Public Economics, Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, Journal of Housing Economics

Honors, Scholarships, and Fellowships

2018-2019

Robert R. Nathan Dissertation Fellowship, Wharton

2018

Richard Frost Award, Zell-Lurie Real Estate Center, Wharton

2017 2014

Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, C. Lowell Harris Dissertation Fellowship Amy Morse Prize (Top 1st Year Ph.D. Student in Applied Economics)

2013-2016

National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship

2013-2018

Wharton Applied Economics Doctoral Fellowship

Research Papers:

The Distributional Impact of Mortgage Interest Subsidies: Evidence from Variation in State Tax Policies (JOB MARKET PAPER)

Abstract: Mortgage interest tax deductions are a widespread, expensive, and regressive tax expenditure, yet credibly measuring the policy's economic incidence has proved difficult. This paper starts with a flexible economic framework that expresses the policy's distributional impact in terms of a key statistic: the capitalization effect, or the extent to which the deduction increases house prices. I then directly estimate this parameter, drawing on a national database of housing transactions and exploiting sharp variation in tax rates and itemization rules at state borders. Comparing the sale prices of observationally identical homes purchased on either side of a border, I find that a one percentage point increase in the tax rate applied to mortgage interest increases house prices by 0.8%, which is sufficient to erase the tax savings for a first-time borrower when their loan-to-value ratio is under 60%. Finally, I take these results back to the data and examine how accounting for capitalization dilutes the ownership subsidy for different types of borrowers.

Housing Disease and Public School Finances (with Fernando Ferreira). NBER Working Paper No. 24140.

Abstract: Housing disease is a fiscal externality from local housing markets in which unexpected booms generate extra revenues that school administrators have incentives to spend. Using the timelines of booms to deal with reverse causality and changes in household composition, we estimate housing price elasticities of per-pupil expenditures of 0.16-0.20, which accounts for approximately half of the rise in public school spending of the 1990s and 2000s. School districts primarily spent the extra resources on instruction and capital projects, not on administrative expenditures, suggesting that the cost increase was accompanied by improvements in the quality of school inputs.

"No Excuses" Charter Schools and College Enrollment: New Evidence from a High-School Network in Chicago (with Blake Heller). Forthcoming, Education Finance and Policy. Link to prepublication manuscript.

Abstract: While it is well-known that certain charter schools dramatically increase students' standardized test scores, there is considerably less evidence that these human capital gains persist into adulthood. To address this matter, we match three years of lottery data from a high-performing charter high school to administrative college enrollment records and estimate the effect of winning an admissions lottery on college matriculation, quality, and persistence. Seven to nine years after the lottery, we find that lottery winners are 10.0 percentage points more likely to attend college and 9.5 percentage points more likely to enroll for at least four semesters. Unlike previous studies, our estimates are powerful enough to uncover improvements on the extensive margin of college attendance (enrolling in any college), the intensive margin (persistence of attendance), and the quality margin (enrollment at selective, four-year institutions). We conclude by providing non-experimental evidence that more recent cohorts at other campuses in the network increased enrollment at a similar rate.

Languages: English (native)

Computer: Stata, R, LaTeX, GIS, MS Office

JENNIE (ZHENG JAI) HUANG

huangzh@wharton.upenn.edu

WHARTON SCHOOL, UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA

Placement Director: Fernando Ferreira Graduate Administrator: Diana Broach

fferreir@wharton.upenn.edu 215-898-7181 dhs@wharton.upenn.edu 215-898-7761

Office Contact Information 3620 Locust Walk, Suite 3000 Philadelphia, PA 19104 (773) 634-0950

Personal Information: Female, U.S. citizen

Undergraduate Studies: B.A. in Economics, University of Chicago, general honors, 2012

Graduate Studies: Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, 2014 to present Ph.D. Candidate in Business Economics and Public Policy Thesis Title: "Essays in Experimental Economics" Expected Completion Date: May 2019

Thesis Committee and References:

Judd B. Kessler (Chair) Associate Professor of Business Economics and Public Policy The Wharton School (215) 898-6372 judd.kessler@wharton.upenn.edu

Katherine L. Milkman Evan C Thompson Endowed Term Chair for Excellence in Teaching Professor of Operations, Information and Decisions The Wharton School (215) 573-9646 kmilkman@wharton.upenn.edu

Corinne S. Low Assistant Professor of Business Economics and Public Policy The Wharton School (215) 898-0928 corlow@wharton.upenn.edu

Benjamin B. Lockwood Assistant Professor of Business Economics and Public Policy The Wharton School (215) 573-6849 ben.lockwood@wharton.upenn.edu

Teaching and Research Fields: Primary fields: Behavioral Economics, Experimental Economics, Applied Microeconomics Secondary fields: Decision Making, Negotiation, Gender

Teaching Experience: Spring 2017 Managerial Economics (Undergraduate), The Wharton School Teaching Assistant

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Research Experience and Other Employment:

2015-2017 The Wharton School

2016

The Wharton School

2012-2014 Navigant Consulting Inc.

2010-2012 University of Chicago

Research Assistant to Corinne Low Research Assistant to Judd B. Kessler Consultant (Undergraduate) Research Assistant to John List

Professional Activities: Refereeing: Ad Hoc Reviewer, Management Science

Presentations: 2018:

2017:

University of Chicago Booth School of Business Marketing Workshop (Chicago, IL) Student Workshop in Experimental Economics Techniques Conference (New York, NY) The Wharton School, Marketing Department Colloquia (Philadelphia, PA) The Wharton School, Applied Economics Workshop (Philadelphia, PA) Stanford Institute for Theoretical Economics, Experimental Economics (Palo Alto, CA) Columbia, NYU, Wharton Graduate Student Conference on Experimental Economics (New York, NY) North America Regional Economics Science Association Meetings (Richmond, VA)

Invited Participant:

2017:

Rady School of Management and The Choice Lab at NHH Spring School in Behavioral

Economics (San Diego, CA)

Honors, Scholarships, and Fellowships:

2018

Wharton Doctoral Travel Grant

2017

Graduate and Professional Student Assembly Research Travel Grant

2015-2018 Wharton Risk Center Russell Ackoff Doctoral Student Fellowship Award ($11,200

cumulative)

2014-2018 Fontaine Fellowship Program

2014-2018 Wharton Doctoral Program Fellowship

Languages: English (native), Spanish (fluent), Chinese Mandarin (conversational), Portuguese (advance), Shnghainese dialect (conversational)

Technical Skills: Stata, R, LATEX, Qualtrics, z-Tree, MS Office

Publications: "Trumping Norms: Lab Evidence on Aggressive Communication before and after the 2016 US Presidential Election." with Corinne Low, American Economic Review Papers & Proceedings, Vol. 107, No. 5, 120-124. News Coverage: The Washington Post, Vanity Fair, Forbes

Working Papers: "Transaction Utility and Consumer Choice" (JOB MARKET PAPER) Abstract: I investigate the role of transaction utility on consumer choice. I design two laboratory paradigms to mirror shopping experiences using discounts and mark-ups (Study 1) and coupons (Study 2). In my experiments, participants purchase virtual products, allowing me to isolate transaction utility from inferences of product quality. Results reveal that consumers experience transaction utility even over these virtual products and will sacrifice monetary payoffs for transaction utility. Participants gain utility from perceived discounts, disutility from perceived mark-ups, and utility from using more of a coupon. My estimates suggest consumers' marginal rate of substitution between study earnings and transaction utility is: 37-57 cents to gain

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a dollar of perceived discount and 37-78 cents to avoid a dollar of perceived mark-up. These estimates suggest a large relevance for transaction utility across a wide array of consumer decisions and purchasing behavior.

"The Myth of the Male Negotiator: Gender's Effect on Negotiation Strategies and Outcomes" (with Corinne Low) Abstract: This paper studies how gender affects negotiation strategy and payoffs. Although conventional wisdom holds that women are "worse" negotiators, we find that men have a disadvantage in negotiation in a setting with explicit verbal communication relative to a control game without communication. This effect is driven by a treatment where partner gender information is public, to most closely mirror a real-world negotiation. The mechanism of the effect appears to be that men fail to tailor their negotiation strategy "optimally" to partner gender. Men are significantly less likely to use tough (and effective) negotiation strategies against female partners than against male partners. We show that these choices reduce payoffs, and male-male pairs perform particularly poorly, demonstrating a "toxic masculinity" effect. As an explanation for these results, we suggest men may be "constrained" by gender norms in their communication strategy leading them to be more chivalrous to women and "tough" toward men at the expense of their own payoffs.

"The Value of Information and the Role of Fairness in Bargaining" (with Judd B. Kessler, and Muriel Niederle) Abstract: Research from the last three decades suggests that fairness plays an important role in economic transactions. However, the vast majority of this evidence investigates behavior in a full-information environment. We develop a new experimental paradigm--which nests the widely used Ultimatum Game--to show that the role of fairness in economic transactions depends fundamentally on the information structure. We find that when transacting agents are less informed, inequality increases. In the absence of information, proposers give less-fair offers and report believing that responders will accept them. Responders do, in fact, accept less-fair offers when proposers are informed, suggesting that responders are concerned about their social image or proposers' intentions.

Research in Progress: "Make it a Large? Coupons as Targets" Abstract: This paper explores the effect of providing a coupon with an irrelevant cap as a reference point on consumer behavior. I use a lab-field hybrid "coffee drink experiment" where subjects are randomly assigned to receive either a free coffee-based drink coupon with no price limit, or a coupon with a value cap of $8.00. I find subjects with a value cap chose larger and more expensive drinks, and made more costly modifications to their drinks in order to maximize the utility from the free drink credit with a cap compared to those without the cap. I posit value caps act as targets, and may increase salience on the value of the deal.

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