I am a PhD candidate in Economics at the University of Southern California. During the academic year 2025-2026, I visited the Department of Economics at Harvard University.

I am an applied microeconomist with research interests at the intersection of spatial economics and political economy.

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Job Market Paper

“The Geography of Protests: Spatial Fragmentation, Exposure, and Participation in the George Floyd Movement”

Abstract

Geography is a defining feature of protests: participants travel from their residence to the location of the protest. This paper documents the spatial fragmentation of the George Floyd protests of 2020, which took place simultaneously at multiple venues within the same city. It then studies how this fragmentation shaped the 2020 presidential vote in neighborhoods that received protests and those that sent residents to them. Combining 7,920 geocoded protest events with mobile phone location data, I measure protest participation from each census block group. I then exploit differences in protest exposure and participation within the same zip code to estimate the effect of each on the change in vote shares between the 2016 and 2020 elections. Neighborhoods near protest sites saw increases in Republican vote share, a backlash that decays with distance and is larger near violent protests. Neighborhoods whose residents attended protests saw increased Democratic vote share. The effects coexist: the backlash is large but concentrated in a few neighborhoods, the mobilization small but spread across numerous neighborhoods. Participation moved about 137,000 votes toward the Democrats, while exposure near protest sites cost them about 87,000. Violence cost the movement about half of its potential local gains. The protests' direct local effects are unlikely to have decided the 2020 election.