This paper examines the impact of increasing teacher salaries on student outcomes by exploiting variation from the “50K The First Day” campaign that established a $50,000 salary floor for new teachers across New Jersey school districts. Using school- level data from 2003 to 2019, I employ a staggered difference-in-differences design with variation in both timing and magnitude and first show that the campaign shifted the entire salary schedule, raising pay for incumbents as well as new teachers (approximately $1,500 on average). I then estimate effects on standardized achievement, graduation, and near-term college enrollment. Achievement gains emerge gradually: by five years after adoption, high school Math and ELA increase by about 0.15–0.20 and 0.12–0.17 standard deviations, respectively; in Grade 4, average effects are 0.03–0.05 (Math) and 0.01–0.03 (ELA), while Grade 8 estimates are small and imprecise. Despite higher salaries across the experience distribution, per-pupil spending—both total and teacher- specific—does not increase. Instead, districts appear to finance the schedule change through modest staffing reductions. Analyzing the mechanisms through which these positive effects could have been observed, I rule out teacher migration as a key driver suggesting that the observed improvements are more likely due to changes in teacher motivation and the quality of new teachers entering the profession.

U.S. colleges face persistent inequities—not only in who enrolls, but in who ultimately graduates. While institutions have expanded efforts to diversify incoming classes, students from historically underserved backgrounds, including those who are first-generation and low-income, continue to face several barriers which affect their rate of degree completion. This paper evaluates the causal impact of the Bridge Scholars Program (BSP), an eight-week pre- collegiate summer initiative at Colorado State University designed to support such students in their transition to college. Leveraging a fuzzy regression discontinuity design (FRDD) within a local randomization inference framework, I find that BSP substantially improves first-year completion and second-year persistence. While participants receive a $2,500 annual scholarship, comparative analyses of similar financial aid programs suggest that the bundled nature of BSP—including structured summer programming, academic mentoring, and peer support—is central to its effectiveness. These findings underscore the importance of holistic interventions that address both financial and non-financial barriers to student success.

This study investigates whether the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic—and the as- sociated shift in campus operations, including widespread remote instruction—affected undergraduate students’ decisions to remain in or switch into STEM (and biology- related) majors. Using longitudinal administrative data from a large U.S. public uni- versity (cohorts 2013–2019) and a staggered difference-in-differences design, I find no meaningful effects of the pandemic’s onset on semester-level registration in STEM majors or on switching into STEM. Robustness checks, including nearest-neighbor matching, yield similar null estimates. Overall, the evidence suggests that students’ field-of-study choices were largely resilient to the instructional format change, at least in the short run.

Since the first Starbucks store unionized in Buffalo in 2021, over 700 locations have filed for elections, and broader organizing has surged. We examine whether this campaign sparked wider labor activism. Using an event study, we find that counties with a Starbucks election saw nearly six additional non-Starbucks elections on average—accounting for 21% of the post-2021 surge. However, a staggered difference-in-differences design reveals no wage gains for restaurant workers, suggesting that union momentum has not yet shifted bargaining power. Employers may be waiting on the outcome of first contract negotiations before adjusting pay structures.

Building upon existing literatures that have shown that COVID had severe negative impacts on high-school outcomes, we can expect COVID to have had some negative repercussions on college outcomes for affected high-school students. This paper answers this question by analyzing whether studying under remote settings in high school had any impacts on college outcomes. Using a standard Differences-in-Differences (DiD) model under a continuous (non-binary) treatment setting, preliminary analysis show no consistent differences in the impact of studying online during high school on college outcomes as measured through college GPA and major choices. Given the results from our study, we argue that more research is needed to analyze how remote learning in high schools affects an individuals’ college outcomes and while conducting such research, future researchers should also take considerable time thinking about the mechanism through which different learning models could induce differing impacts.

This paper initially started out during my second year of undergraduate when I was taking econometrics and got me interested in time-series analysis. Working on this paper made me 1) think deeply about the many limitations of the study, 2) reflect on the gaps in my knowledge (and thus graduate school!), and 3) finally understand what it actually means when we say "correlation does not imply causation". My research in graduate school has drifted away from this topic but I remain interested in this area. I recognize and regularly follow the many papers economist have published on foreign investment through channels of remittances and as of now, I do not think I have much to contribute to push the needle in this area. Working on this paper also made me realize how to think of non-significant results and whether those results are actually showing negligible effects. It also gave me the very first glimpses into how paper submissions work which for me, as an undergraduate, was interesting to navigate.
Shakya, Prasiddha, and George P. Gonpu. "Impact of remittances on economic growth in Nepal." Nepal Public Policy Review (2021): 31-47.

This is an example of two projects I was part of for my work at IRISS. In the first one below, we use social network analysis (SNA) to figure out how connections amongst farmers explain their working pattern. The project was funded by the Environmental Defense Fund. A lot of the social network stuff did not end up in this report but I really enjoy working on these type of analysis and hope to incorporate network analysis in my future works. I have had no formal training on SNA's but I think I have picked up a lot of cool things working on different SNA projects at IRISS. I remain interested to see how, and if, SNA's will gain traction in economics research. Link to EDF report.

The second paper was carried out in collaboration with National Farm to School Network (NFSN). NFSN contracted the Institute for Research in the Social Sciences at Colorado State University to collaborate on developing a study aimed at (1) understanding the current landscape of farm to school coordination around the country and (2) assessing the impact that farm to school coordinators or designated farm to school staff have on farm to school activities at the School Food Authority (SFA) level. This report is the result of a mixed-methods research project that included individual interviews with farm to school practitioners, a survey of individuals responsible for farm to school coordination across the U.S., and participant observation in Community of Practice and Working Group meetings with farm to school practitioners. Report

This was a project I did as part of CSU Extension. It is an input-output model using data from IMPLAN that looks at the economic impact of the Ute Theatre. The model was developed from scratch and I also administered a survey from start to finish to understand the socio-cultural importance of this historical venue to people of Rifle. In designing the survey flyer and in-person questionnaires, I finally made use of the many hours of my time I spent in high school learning how to use Photoshop. Ex-post, I was humbled to find many free websites online could have probably designed the flyers better.
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