Research

• Fertility, Housing, and Location Decisions — Slides
  Abstract

  I study the joint decision of fertility and location choice, focusing on housing demand and tenure adjustments. Using PSID and ACS data, I document that new parents often move for housing expansion, accepting real income losses while relocating towards cheaper, lower-wage areas. I complement this with the well-established fact that tenure status (owning versus renting) affects fertility and location decisions.

  To rationalize these facts, I develop a quantitative spatial equilibrium model of fertility and location decisions with tenure choice. In the model, having children increases housing requirements, intensifying the trade-off households face between housing affordability and local wages or amenities. This interaction drives spatial sorting fertility patterns.

• Consumption Sorting and Inequality (with Saverio Spinella)
  Abstract

  We develop and quantify a spatial model of product market search with non-homothetic preferences and endogenous firm and household location. The model provides a microfoundation for many empirical regularities we document: given the same barcode-level consumption basket, high-income households, and households with high-income neighbors pay higher prices. Low-income households exert more search effort, visiting more stores and making multiple shopping trips. A higher concentration of retailers facilitates search effort. Our framework allows us to study policies aimed at reducing inequality and the cost of living, capturing the interplay between shopping behavior, consumption segregation externalities, and spatial congestion forces.

• Frictional Rental Markets and Inequality — Draft
  Abstract

  Using ACS microdata, I document new facts on the heterogeneity of paid rents across individuals and cities. First, young people tend to pay higher rents and move more frequently, especially in denser and less housing-elastic cities. Second, recent movers—both within and across cities—pay systematically higher rents. These effects are heterogeneous across space and stronger in larger, denser metropolitan areas.

  To rationalize these patterns, I develop a parsimonious model of directed search in the rental market. The model explains the observed dispersion in paid rents and implies that increases in housing supply would disproportionately benefit younger and more mobile households.