Abstract: What is the effect of schooling policy on wages? In this paper, I combine a structural model of spatial skill supply/demand with a novel dataset of county-level compulsory schooling laws to argue that it depends on two factors---the mincer return to schooling and the substitutability of skill. The former dictates how wages grow for those who increase schooling, while the later determines how the wages of all other workers respond. I estimate these parameters using instruments motivated directly by the model. The first is a difference-in-difference around compulsory schooling adoption using spatial controls; the second is a market-level measure of compulsory schooling exposure, similar to a Bartik shift-share instrument using migration weights. I estimate a mincer return of .15 and an elasticity of substitution of 6.2, implying strong complementarties between low and high skill workers. This means the mincer return does not come at the cost of uneducated workers. Instead, uneducated workers also benefit from education policy through an increased demand for their labor.
with Daria Bakhareva
Abstract: We examine how religious networks influenced migration patterns during The Great Migration (1900-1940), when approximately six million African Americans moved from the rural South to urban areas in the North and West. Using a novel dataset that combines U.S. Census data and the Census of Religious Bodies, we analyze the relationship between religious similarity and county-to-county migration flows. We find that locations with greater religious similarity experienced significantly higher migration flows, with a one standard deviation increase in religious similarity associated with a 6 percentage point increase in migration rates. These findings contribute to our understanding of how religious institutions, which served as crucial economic and social organizations in African American communities, facilitated one of the largest internal migrations in U.S. history.
with Muhammad Karim
Private tutoring represents a significant component of education in Pakistan, yet little is known about how this market functions. Using household survey data from over 15,000 households across three districts in Punjab, we document that 35% of children receive tutoring, with remarkably little variation across gender, socioeconomic status, or school type. Contrary to popular perception, the vast majority of tutoring occurs through informal group sessions in tutors' homes rather than through formal academy settings, particularly for primary-school aged children. Our tutor surveys reveal that 90% of tutors are young women with secondary degrees who teach an average of 11 students from multiple grade levels simultaneously. Strikingly, tutoring accounts for roughly half of all paid employment for young, educated women in these communities, making it a critical source of female economic opportunity in settings with severe cultural restrictions on women's work.