Overview
Economist at Stony Brook University (formerly Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis). Works on labor market dynamics, disability insurance, and occupational risk. Co-authored with Amanda Michaud on structural models of how occupation affects both earnings risk and SSDI claim probability, and on the empirical analysis of vocational demographics in SSDI trends.
Key Contributions / Features
- Co-author of Michaud et al. (2017) on vocational demographics and SSDI award trends.
- Co-author with Michaud on the structural disability option model (2018): OLG model showing that occupations bundle correlated health and wage risks; Shapley-Owen decomposition attributes 24% of pre-2000 SSDI awards to secular wage declines and 13% post-2000 to baby-boom aging; business cycles ≈ 0% of awards.
- Documented the SSDI non-employment shadow (1.6–2.5% of working-age population in pipeline) and the vocational awards puzzle (constant rules explain only ~6 pp of 35 pp rise in vocational award share).
- Co-author with Michaud on earlier structural DI models incorporating occupational hazards (Michaud and Wiczer 2014, 2016).
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