I study questions in labor and urban economics by applying methods from spatial economics and insights from economic history. My research focuses on the causes and consequences of inequality in cities and often employs large-scale administrative datasets for the United States.

I received my Ph.D. in Economics from MIT in 2024 and my B.A. in Economics and B.S. in Applied Mathematics from Stanford in 2018.

From 2020 to 2024 during my Ph.D., I worked part-time at the Census Bureau’s Center for Economic Studies to build new measures of intergenerational mobility for the mid-20th century.

Name pronunciation tip — my last name is two Chinese characters (危吴) and spoken as way-woo

Working Papers

Unequal Access: Racial Segregation and the Distributional Impacts of Interstate Highways in Cities

PDF Data

This paper investigates the impact of the largest infrastructure project in American history—the Interstate highway system—on inequality and the role of institutional segregation in its disparate incidence. To evaluate the distributional impacts, I develop a general equilibrium spatial framework that incorporates empirical estimates from disaggregated Census microdata in 1960 and 1970 for 25 cities. Highways generated substantial costs from local harms on adjacent areas as well as benefits from reductions in commute times. In the urban core, costs outweigh benefits as proximity to highways is greater and commute connectivity improves predominantly in remote suburbs. I find residential constraints account for much of the initial concentration of the Black population in central areas and their low mobility away, which contribute to racial rather than class gaps in impacts from the Interstate highway system. When barriers are eliminated and Black households are granted access beyond central neighborhoods, the gap in highway impacts is reduced while all groups experience large gains from interstate development. These results highlight how institutions shape inequality in the incidence of place-based shocks.

Best Student Paper, Urban Economics Association.
Allan Nevins Dissertation Prize, Economic History Association

Opportunity in Motion: Equilibrium Effects of a Place-Based Policy on Economic Mobility

PDF

This paper measures the aggregate impacts of a prominent place-based policy, Interstate highway infrastructure, on the local economic development of neighborhoods and the intergenerational outcomes of children. I employ novel parent-child linkages for the near universe of 57 million individuals born between 1964 and 1979. Greater commuting access from Interstate construction increases average income and employment rates of existing residents. Given the large-scale nature of the policy, equilibrium effects emerge with targeted census tracts experiencing inflows of higher occupational status, higher educated, and white households. Combining a movers design with spatial variation from the highway shock, I demonstrate that children causally benefit from growing up in neighborhoods with higher average income and higher SES peers. Spillover effects through migration lead locations with lower access improvements to worsen in peer quality, which adversely affects children. I develop a general framework for evaluating the equilibrium intergenerational impacts of place-based interventions. Under this framework, population reallocation and changes in neighborhood composition cancel out for children's outcomes, while direct economic access benefits boost economic mobility.

The Intergenerational Effects of Local Shocks: Income, Migration, and Human Capital

with Martha Stinson and Sean Wang

We study the channels through which changes in local economic conditions during early childhood affect long-run outcomes for children from differing economic backgrounds. We exploit geographic variation across counties in the decline of manufacturing employment during the 1979 to 1984 period with microdata from the Longitudinal Business Database. To assess the exogeneity of local labor market shocks, we construct additional shocks by combining industry-level energy intensity with spikes in oil prices as a result of the 1979 energy crisis. With administrative and survey data that trace the full trajectory of the children’s lives, we measure how these local changes impact educational attainment, income, and the quality of the firm of employment in the modern day. We explore how migration of parents away from counties experiencing declines and changes in parental income during childhood are central mediators for our findings.

Works in Progress

Measuring Winners and Losers from Increasing Housing Supply

with Vincent Rollet

Municipalities enforce stringent zoning policies as increased housing supply can create concentrated local losses, but these regulations inefficiently limit the aggregate supply of housing. We measure the winners and losers of housing construction to shed light on the political challenges associated with zoning reform. Local losses are key as decision-making occurs at the municipal level, despite cross-jurisdictional externalities. We study multiple forces leading municipalities to desire stringent regulations: inflation of home prices, local and municipal amenities from demographics, fiscal motives from property taxation, and externalities from density. Using New Jersey as a case study and data on local public finances, detailed zoning codes, property characteristics, and individual migration histories, we present empirical evidence from border discontinuity and event study designs on the importance of each channel. We develop a dynamic model of residential choice that accounts for wealth accumulation and differential migration patterns by homeowners and renters. In future work, we will investigate whether state-level policy may tilt political support in favor of policy reform.

Intergenerational Mobility for Generation X: Estimates from Administrative Data

with Martha Stinson

Other Papers

Intergenerational Linkages between Historical IRS 1040 Data and the Numident: 1964-1979 Cohorts

with Martha Stinson. Census Bureau Center for Economic Studies (CES) Technical Note

Link

We construct novel parent-child linkages between the universe of parent tax filers in IRS 1040 forms in 1974 and 1979 and the universe of children from the Census Numident in the cohorts of 1964 to 1979. Variables used for matching are parent names of children and names of parent tax filers, which are obtained from a restricted name file provided by the Social Security Administration. Applying name-matching techniques that incorporate supervised learning methods, we flexibly compare parent names and disambiguate parent-to-parent matches. This report documents the iterative process for identifying matches and the algorithm that is used for assessing the likelihood of a match. We provide match rates for different demographic groups and validate the accuracy of the linkages.

Data

Interstate Highways and Historical Roads

The historical roads were digitized from Shell Atlases in 1951 and 1956 hosted by the David Rumsey Historical Map Collection. I started with a modern shapefile of secondary roads (non-Interstates) and edited them to align with the historical maps. Major roads used for identification are labeled with the FRC_DESC variable under the value "Major Road Less Important than a Freeway", while all other roads enter only into the commute time calculations. Other variables in the dataframe should be ignored. 71 CBSAs are included in the shapefile (noted in the file List of CBSAs).

Download Shapefile List of CBSAs

The planned Interstate Highways were digitized from Yellow Book (General Location of National System of Interstate Highways) maps in 1955. 96 CBSAs are included in the shapefile (noted in the file List of CBSAs). 100 cities have corresponding Yellow Book maps, but some (such as Dallas and Fort Worth) are within the same CBSA.

Download Shapefile List of CBSAs

The national Interstate highway plan was digitized from a Public Roads Administration map in 1947. The Yellow Book maps are combined with the 1947 national plan in the shapefile, so this dataset spans the whole country rather than only the 96 CBSAs in the Yellow Book maps.

Download Shapefile

The rays follow the Yellow Book maps and connect intermediate cities/towns along the plans using straight-line rays. 96 CBSAs are included in the shapefile (noted in the file List of CBSAs).

Download Shapefile List of CBSAs

This shapefile of constructed Interstate highways as of 1996 comes from MIT Libraries and spans the whole country.

Download Shapefile