I am an applied economist with interests in labour, urban, and public economics. Much of my research focuses on how public policy shapes poverty in cities, with a particular interest in social housing and homelessness.

I expect to graduate in spring 2026 and will be available for interviews in the 2025-2026 job market.

Job Market Paper

It’s About Time: Social Housing, Parental Labour Supply, and Long-term Child Outcomes

Abstract: This paper studies the effect of highly subsidized social housing on both medium-term parental labour market outcomes and long-term child earnings and educational attainment. Using linked Canadian administrative data, I exploit variation in the timing of entry into social housing to identify the effects of additional exposure during childhood and find that children who enter earlier achieve better adult outcomes. For parents, event-study estimates around entry reveal substantial reductions in labour supply and earnings, with nearly no effect on net-of-housing income. A simple time-allocation model—where social housing receipt both relaxes the budget constraint and insures parents against earnings uncertainty—rationalizes these large labour supply responses. Declines in parental labour supply are a key factor behind improvements in child outcomes: gains for children are largest when parents reduce their labour supply the most. This channel is highly robust and appears to be causal, as suggested by an analysis isolating exogenous labour supply responses using displacement distance. These results highlight a critical trade-off between maximizing the return for children and the labour market participation of parents.

Working Papers

Why Do Union Jobs Pay More? New Evidence from Matched Employer-Employee Data (with Thomas Lemieux, Derek Messacar & Raffaele Saggio)

Abstract: We use Canadian matched employer-employee data to assess the sources of the union pay premium. After controlling for worker heterogeneity using the Abowd, Kramarz, and Margolis (1999) (AKM) two-way fixed effects approach, we find that unionized firms pay about 15 log points more than non-unionized firms. Forty percent of this gap is linked to productivity differences between unionized and non-unionized firms as measured by value added per worker. The remaining gap reflects unions’ ability to extract more rents for workers. Our estimates imply that unions raise pay among unionized workers by around 9 log points. The union effect grows to about 11 log points in an extension of the AKM approach where unions also affect the returns to unobservable worker characteristics.

A Welfare Analysis of Universal Childcare: Lessons From a Canadian Reform (with Sébastien Montpetit & Luisa Carrer)

Abstract: We assess the welfare impact of the introduction of universal daycare services in Québec in 1997. Unlike the standard sufficient-statistic metric, which assumes marginal changes in fiscal policy, our approach accounts for the non-marginal nature of the program and quantifies non-pecuniary benefits. Through a structural model of childcare demand, we estimate substantial welfare gains from the policy, yielding a Marginal Value of Public Funds (MVPF) above 3.5. Using the sufficient-statistic approach underestimates welfare gains by half. Counterfactual simulations and a difference-in-differences analysis suggest that increasing availability, rather than solely improving affordability, is crucial for the effective design of universal programs.

Gentrification, Displacement, and Income Trajectory of Incumbent Workers

Abstract: Gentrification is associated with rapid demographic changes within inner-city neighborhoods. While many fear that gentrification drives low-income people from their homes and communities, there is limited evidence of the consequences of these changes. I use Canadian administrative tax files to track the movements of incumbent workers and their income trajectory as their neighborhood gentrifies. I exploit the timing at which neighborhoods gentrify in a matched staggered event-study framework. I find no evidence of displacement effects, even for low socioeconomic status households. In fact, families living in gentrifying neighborhoods are more likely to stay longer. I suggest that this might be related to tenant rights protection laws. When they endogenously decide to leave, low-income families do not relocate to worse neighborhoods. Finally, I find no adverse effects on their income trajectory, suggesting no repercussions on their labor market outcomes.

• Stone Centre Doctoral Fellowship, 2024-2026
• Canadian Labour Economics Forum Best Paper Award (runner-up), 2024
• CRDCN Emerging Scholars Grant, 2024
• FRQSC Doctoral Fellowship, 2021-2025
• UBC Doctoral Fellowship, 2020-2025
• Queen’s Graduate Award Scholarship, 2019-2020
• Senator Frank Carrel Fellowship, 2019-2020
• Bourse du Syndicat des professeurs-es de l’UQAM, 2018
• Québec Economics Games, Winning Team, 2018
• Jean-Soucy Scholarship, 2017