Published in AEA Papers and Proceddings, 2024
We study federal spending in the US on drinking water investments. Congressional Earmarks, traditionally known as “pork barrel” spending, disproportionately benefit Hispanic but not Black or low-income communities compared to loans. All funding sources target Black, Hispanic, and low-income communities mainly due to targeting population dense areas.
Published in Submitted, 2025
We develop an ex ante deep learning framework to project the effects of proposed policy reforms. Our model outperforms traditional methods of policy projects done by domain experts and allows flexibility to optimize on your preferred performance metric. Using the CLEAR model, a new model developed to map jurisdiction under the Clean Water Act, we document changes in jurisdictional patterns due to the recent Sackett Supreme Court decision. Sackett removes protections for about a third of streams, wetlands, and floodplains.