Working in Progress
Papers Under Review
Tax Incentives and Local Business Ownership: Evidence from the Florida Enterprise Zone Program (with Jamie Pavlik and Juan Sayago) [WP Link]
The effect of place-based policies like enterprise zones has long been debated. Recent literature finds that even if the short-run effects of such policies are positive, the long-run effects tend to dissipate to zero. We focus on why this is the case. We argue that the lack of long-run effects is the failure to attract locally owned small businesses. We study the effects of enterprise zone designation on local business sorting in Florida. Utilizing a regression discontinuity design and establishment level NETS data, we find that enterprise zone designation reduces the likelihood of single-establishment local ownership but it attracts firm headquarters.
How do hurricanes affect local industry composition in Florida? (with John Shannon and Melanie Schmees)
This study examines how hurricanes affect industrial diversification in Florida counties over the short and long term. We use a wind field models to measure county-level hurricane exposure and employ a fixed effect model spanning 35 years across 67 counties. Results reveal distinct temporal patterns: non-major hurricanes drive gradual diversification 3-4 years post-impact, while major hurricanes trigger immediate restructuring within two years. We explore mechanisms including labor force composition, FEMA assistance, and agglomeration economies. Regions with larger prime-age populations better mitigate concentration effects following major hurricanes. Export-oriented regions experience attenuated diversification effects, while infrastructure spending promotes diversification but other FEMA assistance may inadvertently increase concentration. These findings inform disaster preparedness policies and community resilience strategies.
How Hot is too Hot? An Analysis of Housing Markets in the U.S. (with Andrea Santana* and Travis Jones)
This paper examines the shape of the housing price curve by examining the relationship between the monthly National Association of Realtors’ Market Hotness Index metric and real median listing prices for homes in 1612 counties in the U.S over the period 2017-2024. Economic theory suggests that there should be a correlation between market hotness and housing prices, but the shape of this relationship – linear or polynomial – is an empirical question. Our results illustrate that there is an N-shaped relationship between market hotness and median listing prices and that movements in the supply side (median days on market) are leading the changes in prices rather than movements on the demand side (viewers per property). We also document that this relationship is more prominent in urban homes and those in the second to fourth price quartiles.
Opportunistic Investment: The Political Economy Impacts of FEMA Hurricane Declarations (with Amanda Ross and Matt Fannin)
Do political incentives shape disaster aid allocation, and do such allocations generate electoral rewards? We examine these questions using FEMA disaster assistance following hurricanes in Florida, exploiting differences in administrative discretion and public visibility across programs. We find that counties represented by more Republican state legislators are more likely to receive discretionary Individual Assistance and experience more favorable funding and timing outcomes, whereas counties with greater Republican shares of legislative representation receive less aid. However, disaster aid does not generate uniform electoral returns. Public Assistance is generally associated with positive lagged effects on incumbent-party vote margins, whereas Individual Assistance produces substantially more heterogeneous electoral responses. These findings demonstrate that institutional design links distributive politics and democratic accountability: program characteristics shape both opportunities for political influence over the allocation of public resources and whether governments ultimately receive electoral credit for providing them.
Where Authority Belongs: Specifying Spatial Legitimacy in a Reconfiguring Field (with Kimberly Merriman, Oscar Aliaga*, and Michael Obal)
Authority in organizational fields is typically understood as attached to actors, practices, and organizational forms. This paper shifts attention to how authority also becomes anchored in place by developing an abductively grounded model of spatial legitimacy, the taken-for-granted belief that credible and consequential participation in a field properly belongs in particular geographic locations. Against the backdrop of geographic reconfiguration in U.S. finance across New York, Miami, and Dallas, we conduct a multi-method study of how spatial legitimacy becomes salient, contested, and translated. Geographic reconfiguration exposes this otherwise hidden evaluative infrastructure, revealing that physical clustering is necessary but insufficient for spatial legitimacy. Across field-level discourse, organizational artifacts, and lived professional accounts, we find that financial activity is distinguished from financial authority. While New York operates as a sedimented legitimacy anchor within our focal field, Miami and Dallas elicit distinct forms of legitimacy work rather than a simple hierarchy. Our cross-level synthesis identifies three higher-order mechanisms through which place-based symbolic authority persists and transforms: cognitive anchoring, evaluative defense, and legitimacy translation. Together, this work extends organizational scholarship beyond where work happens to where authority is recognized, identifying place as a gatekeeping mechanism for credible participation even as work becomes more geographically mobile.
How Much of a Contingent Valuation Estimate Is an Analyst? Closure Assumptions, Slope Rules, and Certainty Calibration (with Johane Dikgang, Ruth Quainoo, and Alex Magnier) [WP Link]
Mean willingness to pay from dichotomous-choice contingent valuation can depend on choices made after data collection. Using a survey of freshwater ecosystem protection in Southwest Florida, we compare nonparametric welfare rules, cutoff-slope conventions, and certainty calibration. Defensible specifications yield $69-$184 per household annually. Bootstrap results show that sampling stability depends on the specification: anchored tail rules are relatively stable, while some unanchored rules are highly unstable. We show that extrapolation sensitivity is governed by acceptance at the highest bid and that calibration also changes observed-support welfare. We recommend transparent sensitivity reporting and bid ladders that drive top-bid acceptance toward zero.