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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: [email protected]
Graduate Administrator:
Diana Broach
Phone: (215) 898-7761
Email: [email protected]
Placement Website: https://bepp.wharton.upenn.edu/programs/applied-economics-job-market-candidates/
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: [email protected]
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: [email protected]
MATTHEW S. DAVIS https://bepp.wharton.upenn.edu/profile/mattda/
THE WHARTON SCHOOL, UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA
Placement Director: Fernando Ferreira
Graduate Administrator: Diana Broach
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, [email protected]
Professor Joseph Gyourko
The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania
215.898.3003, [email protected]
Professor Benjamin Keys
The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania
215.746.1253, [email protected]
Professor Todd Sinai
The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania
215.898.5390, [email protected]
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
2018
2017
2014
2013-2016
Robert R. Nathan Dissertation Fellowship, Wharton
Richard Frost Award, Zell-Lurie Real Estate Center, Wharton
Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, C. Lowell Harris Dissertation Fellowship
Amy Morse Prize (Top 1st Year Ph.D. Student in Applied Economics)
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 pre-
publication 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
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JENNIE (ZHENG JAI) HUANG https://bepp.wharton.upenn.edu/profile/huangzh/
WHARTON SCHOOL, UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA
Placement Director: Fernando Ferreira [email protected] 215-898-7181
Graduate Administrator: Diana Broach [email protected] 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
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
Corinne S. Low
Assistant Professor of Business
Economics and Public Policy
The Wharton School
(215) 898-0928
Benjamin B. Lockwood
Assistant Professor of Business
Economics and Public Policy
The Wharton School
(215) 573-6849
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
2
Research Experience and Other Employment:
2015-2017 The Wharton School Research Assistant to Corinne Low
2016 The Wharton School Research Assistant to Judd B. Kessler
2012-2014 Navigant Consulting Inc. Consultant
2010-2012 University of Chicago (Undergraduate) Research Assistant to John List
Professional Activities:
Refereeing: Ad Hoc Reviewer, Management Science
Presentations:
2018: 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)
2017: 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
3
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.
