Please refer to my Research Statement

Working Papers

How International Students Affect Domestic Students' Achievement: evidence from the OPT Stem-extension (Job Market Paper) Abstract: In this paper, I look at how international students impact domestic students’ academic performance in the US higher education. Using administrative data from a large public university, I find that international students have a slight negative affect on domestic students’ grades and graduation rates in Engineering and Science. However, there is also positive returns to education from interacting with internationals conditional on graduating. In essence, there is a small cost of international students in terms of increased competition for higher grades but these same forces bring positive externality in learning and eventually higher returns to education Immigrants Reduce Unionization in the United States (with Alex Nowrasteh and Artem Samiahulin, under review)Abstract: Since the 1960s, U.S. union density has consistently dropped as the immigrant share of the population has risen. Using the Naylor and Cripps (1993) model of union formation, we argue that immigrants lower unionization because they have lower preferences for unionization and increase diversity in the working population that, in turn, reduces solidarity among workers. Empirically, we employ the skill-cell method devised by Borjas (2003) over the 1980-2020 period. We find that immigration reduced union density by 5.7 percentage points between 1980 and 2020, which accounts for 29.7 percent of the overall decline in union density during that period.

Work in Progress

• International students’ effect on local businesses
• Returns to a STEM Degree. Using admin. data from a Land-grant university