Works in Progress

“The Price of Housing in the United States, 1890-2006,” with Ronan C. Lyons, Rowena Gray, and David Agorastos. (Slides)

“The Long-Run Impacts of Zoning the Suburbs,” with Ryan Gallagher and Tate Twinam.

“The Affordability of Housing in the United States over the Twentieth Century,” with Rowena Gray and Ronan C. Lyons.

Research Papers

“The Value of Piped Water and Sewers: Evidence from 19th Century Chicago,” with Michael Coury, Toru Kitagawa, and Matthew Turner. NBER Working Paper 29718, February 2023. Revision requested, Review of Economics and Statistics. (Download)

“The Impact of Early Investments in Urban School Systems in the United States,” with Ethan Schmick. NBER Working Paper 25663, March 2020. (Download)

“The HOLC Maps: How Race and Poverty Influenced Real Estate Professionals’ Evaluation of Lending Risk in the 1930s,” with Price V. Fishback, Jessica LaVoice, and Randall P. Walsh. Journal of Economic History 83.4 (2023), 1019-1056. (Download) *Featured in The New York Times (September 29th, 2021)

“Racial Segregation in Housing Markets and the Erosion of Black Wealth,” with Prottoy A. Akbar, Sijie Li, and Randall P. Walsh. Review of Economics and Statistics (2022). (Download)
*Featured in VoxEU (August 31st, 2019)

“Zoning and Segregation in Urban Economic History,” with Tate Twinam and Randall P. Walsh. NBER Working Paper 28351, January 2021. Regional Science and Urban Economics 94 (2022): 103652 (special issue on Urban Economics and History). (Download)

“Racial Sorting and the Emergence of Segregation in American Cities,” with Randall P. Walsh. Review of Economics and Statistics 101.3 (2019): 1-14. (Complete version: Download)
*Featured in The Economist (June 11th, 2020), The Washington Post (March 17th, 2016), CityLab (March 18th, 2016), and VoxEU (May 19th, 2016)

“Ideology and Migration after the American Civil War,” with Shari Eli and Laura Salisbury. Journal of Economic History 78.3 (2018): 822-861. (Download)

“Zoning and the Economic Geography of Cities,” with Tate Twinam and Randall P. Walsh. Journal of Urban Economics 105 (2018): 20-39. (Download)
*Featured in the Houston Chronicle (September 19th, 2016) and CityLab (September 23rd, 2016)

“Segregation and Neighborhood Change in Northern Cities: New Historical GIS Data from 1900 to 1930,” with John R. Logan and Randall P. Walsh. Historical Methods 49.4 (2016): 187-197. (Download)

“Immigrant Group Size and Political Mobilization: Evidence from European Migration to the United States.” Journal of Public Economics 139 (2016): 1-12. (Complete version: Download) (Published version: Download)

“Race, Ethnicity, and Discriminatory Zoning,” with Tate Twinam and Randall P. Walsh. American Economic Journal: Applied Economics 8.13 (2016): 217-246. (Download) (Appendix)

“Creating the Black Ghetto: Black Residential Patterns Before and During the Great Migration,” with John R. Logan, Weiwei Zhang, and Richard Turner. Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 660.1 (2015): 18-35. (Download)

“Did the Americanization Movement Succeed? An Evaluation of the Effect of English-Only and Compulsory Schooling Laws on Immigrants,” with Adriana Lleras-Muney. American Economic Journal: Economic Policy 7.3 (2015): 258-290. (Download)

“Population Trends as a Counterweight to Central City Decline,” with Leah Platt Boustan, Demography 50.1 (2013): 125-147. (Download)
*Featured in Newsweek (October 29th, 2010)