Research

Working Papers

"Estimating the Average Treatment-on-the-Treated Effects of DACA" - Job Market Paper

Abstract: I examine the labor market response of undocumented youth that participated in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA). DACA provides temporary work authorization and deferral from deportation to eligible undocumented youth. I use data from the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to construct a probabilistic measure for the unobserved DACA participation. Using ACS data, I estimate a two-sample model of the effect of participating in the DACA program. I also estimate the spillover effects of DACA on eligible but non-participating undocumented youth. I find that DACA significantly improved labor market outcomes of DACA recipients, with magnitude of the treatment-on-the-treated effects at least twice as large as the intent-to-treat estimates obtained from using only the observed eligibility indicator. I also find an increase in school attendance among DACA recipients. Evidence of a negative spillover effect on eligible non-participants is documented with a decrease in labor force participation and school attendance.

"Credible Interval Estimates of the Size and Legal Composition of the US Foreign-Born Population"
(w/ Christopher Bollinger)

Abstract: Government agencies and academic researchers typically report the size and legal composition of the foreign-born population as point estimates. As these estimates are generally produced using survey data, they are impacted by both sampling and nonsampling error. This paper considers nonsampling error due to item nonresponse in the estimates of the size and legal composition of the foreign-born produced using the American Community Survey. The standard practice to deal with item nonresponse is to impute values under the assumption that nonresponse is conditionally random. I follow a procedure that allows me to form credible interval estimates that make no assumptions about the values of missing data by taking into account all uncertainty due to item nonresponse. Without any assumptions on the distribution of citizenship status among non-respondents, the size of the foreign-born population in the US falls somewhere between 40.4 and 59.4 million as of 2019 compared to the Census estimate of 44.9 million. When taking into account item nonresponse from all questions used in the imputation procedure to assign legal status, the size of the undocumented population fall between 7.3 and 18.3 million compared to the widely accepted estimate of 11 million undocumented immigrants.

Work in Progress

“Imputing Treatment: Misclassification Bias in the Effects of DACA”

“The Effectiveness of Employment-Based Tax Credits Under Labor Market Frictions”
(w/ Hyein Kang)

“Immigrant’s Legal Status and English Skill Acquisition”