I am a PhD candidate in Economics at the University of Southern California. During the academic year 2025-2026, I will be visiting 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, Participation and Backlash in the George Floyd Movement”

Abstract

This paper studies how urban geography shapes protest dynamics and voting behavior. I geocode 5,785 George Floyd protest events and document significant spatial fragmentation in major American cities: protests take place simultaneously at multiple venues within the same city. Combining these geocoded sites with mobile phone location data, I measure foot traffic flows between neighborhoods and protest venues at the census-tract level. I then estimate the downstream effects on political outcomes, exploiting differences in protest exposure and participation across neighborhoods within the same metropolitan area. The results show a localized backlash: neighborhoods within one kilometer of protest sites experience significant increases in Republican vote share, with effects that decay rapidly with distance and are amplified by violence. However, a countervailing mobilization channel operates through direct participation: neighborhoods whose residents visited protest areas saw increased Democratic vote share and higher turnout, even after controlling for local exposure. Taken together, the results show that protest fragmentation—shaped by urban structure—expands both participation and exposure, generating offsetting political effects whose balance depends on the spatial organization of protest within cities. On net, participation effects dominate backlash, but the coexistence of the two mechanisms helps explain why mass protests can both energize supporters and intensify polarization.