I am a PhD candidate in Economics at MIT. My research fields are health economics, public economics, and applied econometrics.

Before coming to MIT, I earned a BS in Economics (summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa) at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, a MPH at University College Cork as a Mitchell Scholar, and a MSc in Health Sciences at the University of York as a Marshall Scholar.

I am on the job market for 2025-2026.

Job Market Paper

  • The Value of Pharmacies
    Abstract

    Retail pharmacies play a central role in the delivery of healthcare in the United States, yet little is known about their causal impact on patient behavior and health. Understanding their value is particularly urgent as all three major U.S. pharmacy chains—CVS, Walgreens, and Rite Aid—have recently announced large-scale store closures. This paper estimates the effects of retail pharmacy closures on prescription drug use and health outcomes. Using Medicare claims data from 2009 to 2017, I identify closures through an algorithm that clusters pharmacy identifiers based on shared patients and exploit these events in a two-way fixed effects difference-in-differences design. I find that pharmacy closures significantly reduce prescription drug use, particularly among racial and ethnic minorities and beneficiaries with disabilities. However, the reduction in prescription drug use is partially offset by substantial adaptation: many switch to mail-order pharmacies or obtain longer prescription durations following a closure. Finally, I find minimal effects on downstream health outcomes or healthcare utilization.

Selected Publications

  • Dying or Lying? For-Profit Hospices and End-of-Life Care (with Jonathan Gruber, David H. Howard, and Jetson Leder-Luis). American Economic Review, 2025, 115 (1): 263-294.
    Abstract

    The Medicare hospice program is intended to provide palliative care to terminal patients, but patients with long stays in hospice are highly profitable, motivating concerns about overuse among the Alzheimer's and Dementia (ADRD) population in the rapidly growing for-profit sector. We provide the first causal estimates of the effect of for-profit hospice on patient spending using the entry of for-profit hospices over 20 years. We find hospice has saved money for Medicare by offsetting other expensive care among ADRD patients. As a result, policies limiting hospice use including revenue caps and antifraud lawsuits are distortionary and deter potentially cost-saving admissions.

  • The Need for Federal Regulation of Marijuana Marketing (with John W. Ayers and Eric C. Leas). JAMA, 2019, 321 (22): 2163.
  • Suicide Risk Behaviors Among Sexual Minority Adolescents in the United States, 2015 (with D. Smith and John W. Ayers). JAMA, 2017, 318 (23): 2349.

Working Papers

  • Sedation and Selection: Restricting Antipsychotics in Nursing Homes
    Abstract

    Antipsychotics have been a major source of policy debate in nursing home care since the 1980s. On one hand, antipsychotics are generally considered medically inappropriate for elderly populations as they increase the risk of cerebrovascular mortality. On the other hand, antipsychotics make caring for elderly patients easier. Use in nursing homes is common; 30-40% of long-stay nursing home patients receive antipsychotics. In this project, I study the effects of a federal policy intended to reduce antipsychotic prescribing in nursing homes on patient health and nursing home strategy. Antipsychotic prescribing in nursing homes decreases, but this reduction appears to be driven by change in patient mix.

  • Recreational Marijuana Dispensaries and Fatal Car Crashes
    Abstract

    Car crashes are a leading cause of death among younger Americans and have become a central concern in the US marijuana policy debate. I construct a novel dataset of marijuana dispensary openings, which I use to present new evidence on the effect of marijuana on traffic fatalities. My intra-state differences-in-differences approach both increases power relative to past analyses and eliminates the potential of time-varying state-level confounding. I find that marijuana dispensary openings increase the rate of fatal car crashes by approximately 5.7%. I use a series of tests to discern between two plausible mechanisms – increased traffic and increased impairment – and ultimately find that the effect is primarily driven by impairment.

Other Publications

First or sole-authored publications marked with asterisk in CV.

Contact

Email: [email protected]
Department of Economics, MIT • Cambridge, MA