Postdoctoral and Graduate Fellows: Academic Year 2024–25

Woojin Kim is studying the political polarization in medical practice between Republican and Democratic physicians.

Chika Okafor studies how the criminal legal system impacts health outcomes and disparities

Sean Kiely, will be studying the impact of information and food labeling policies in affecting household demand for food products.

Michael Navarrete is studying heterogenous inflation rates within the US and how these differences can exacerbate real income inequality.

Rainer Kotschy is an applied economist who researches the life cycle of economic activity with special emphasis on health and aging. His work spans topics in labor and demographic economics, health, and economic development at the micro and macro levels.

Brandon Enriquez is researching how labor market institutions and macroeconomic trade shocks shape the trajectory of racial inequality in the United States.

Bahar Eftekhari is studying the impact of the Children’s Health Insurance Program on the financial well-being of Supplemental Security Income beneficiaries.

Michael Briskin is studying the widespread adoption of private health insurance in the 1940s and 1950s and its effects on physician labor markets and health outcomes in the US.

Theodore Caputi is studying behavioral aspects of public health, such as drug use, violence, and crime, and their effects on economic outcomes.

Rebekah Dix is studying externalities in medical innovation and how interoperability and technological frictions affect patients and healthcare providers.

Marema Gaye is studying the economics of mental health care and mental health clinician non-participation in public health insurance.

Dean Li is studying the effects of outsourcing, technological change, and consolidation on healthcare labor markets and healthcare delivery.

Kelsey Moran is studying the factors influencing hospital provision of charity care as well as the effects of health information exchange on patients and organizations.

James Okun is studying the effects of government buyer power on health care markets as well as the quality of publicly-financed nursing home care in the United States and how it interacts with selective admissions practices. 

Graeme Peterson is studying health insurance markets, environmental health, and the causes and consequences of racial disparities in the US healthcare system.

Michael Cai is developing a semi-structural approach to estimating macroeconomic models, which accommodates wide classes of non-rational expectations.

Matteo Saccarola is doing research on belief formation over inflation, exchange rates, and prices, using a combination of survey experiments and applied microeconomics.

Lingxuan "Sean" Wu studies people’s (mis-)understanding of economic relations and its implications for shock transmission and stabilization policy, employing a combination of theoretical, empirical and survey methods.

Justin Katz studies frictions in household debt repayment decisions to guide the design of government interventions in consumer credit markets, with a particular focus on the mortgage and housing sector.

Grace Ortuzar is examining policies designed to benefit low-income tenants and reduce homelessness. 

Melissa Gentry is studying barriers to employment for people with disabilities, with a focus on access to transportation

Sydney Gordon is researching the role that field office staffing plays in benefits enrollments at the Social Security Administration, with a focus on understanding the differing impacts of administrative burden across populations.