I am an Assistant Professor of Economics at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign starting in 2025. I received my Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2024.
I study intended and unintended consequences of labor and regional policies using novel datasets, field experiments, reduced-form analysis, and structural models.
Research Fields: Labor Economics, Urban Economics, Public Economics
[ CV ] [ Email: hoyoung@illinois.edu ]
Abstract: Urban consumption is highly segregated, limiting consumers' opportunities and firms' reach beyond local markets. We study its malleability in a randomized experiment with 341 Tulsa residents, followed weekly for four weeks using transaction-level spending data. Guided neighborhood exposure increases spending in targeted neighborhoods among recent migrants by 10.7 percentage points, more than twice the sample mean. Responses are largest among Black and Hispanic participants and extend beyond businesses featured in the intervention. Reallocated spending is concentrated at highly rated establishments. Consumption geography is most malleable when consumers have greater scope to learn and greater perceived social fit.
Abstract: We investigate how increases in credit access impact residential mobility. Using a regression discontinuity design leveraging a cutoff commonly used in determining mortgage loan eligibility, we find that individuals who cross the cutoff from below are 17.2% more likely to move than their counterparts who remain below the cutoff. Threshold crossing also increases flows into homeownership and improves other non-mortgage credit outcomes. We find younger individuals (ages 25-29) 5.7pp less likely to move than average prime-age individuals despite experiencing 17.9% larger annual earnings gains, suggesting credit access alone is insufficient without addressing mobility barriers specific to young movers.
Awards Received: AREUEA Hoyt Dissertation Honorable Mention
Grants Received: Russell Sage Foundation Dissertation Research
Media Coverage: Cardinal News, Business Insider
Abstract: This paper studies how an influx of high-skilled remote workers impacts local residents in destination cities through remote worker relocation programs. Using the Tulsa Remote program, I provide evidence that while remote workers' arrival does not alter local residents' residential or workplace locations, it has offsetting effects on local employment across different sectors. Through a spatial equilibrium model, I find that policies to attract remote workers can enhance local residents' average welfare without necessarily transferring welfare from local residents to landowners. However, this outcome relies on the availability of vacant housing, the expectation of program growth among local businesses and landowners, and the program's funding source.
Online Appendix [link]
[3] "Estimating the Consumption-Smoothing Value of Medicaid Expansion: Evidence and Limits" (with Anita Mukherjee and Daniel W. Sacks)
Journal of Public Economics, 260 (2026): 105686. [Replication]
Abstract: We ask what direct consumption data can reveal about the consumption-smoothing component of the insurance value of the Affordable Care Act Medicaid expansions. Medicaid expansion may reduce consumption risk by limiting exposure to out-of-pocket medical spending, but this channel may be muted when much uninsured care is financed through charity care, bad debt, or other forms of uncompensated care. We combine household expenditure data from the Consumer Expenditure Survey with the staggered timing of state Medicaid expansions to estimate effects on average consumption and on the within-education-group consumption distribution. We then map these estimated distributional effects into a static expected-utility framework. The exercise highlights both what this approach can reveal and where it is limited. Point estimates are largest for individuals without a high school degree and close to zero for higher-education groups, but the estimates are imprecise, including for average consumption. The resulting insurance-value calculations require additional assumptions and are also statistically imprecise. We therefore interpret the results as showing that existing consumption data can be used to bound the consumption-smoothing channel, but are not adequate to precisely estimate this component of the insurance value of Medicaid expansion. The findings clarify what can and cannot be learned from consumption data about this component of Medicaid's value.
[2] "The Effects of the Opioid Crisis on Employment: Evidence from Labor Market Flows" (with Anita Mukherjee and Daniel W. Sacks)
Journal of Human Resources 60.3 (2025): 780-811. [Replication]
Media Coverage: HealthLawProf Blog
Abstract: We show that the opioid crisis slows transitions to employment from unemployment and nonparticipation. We identify the effect of the opioid crisis from cross-state variation in triplicate prescribing regulations, which produced long-lasting reductions in opioid use by reducing the initial distribution of the blockbuster opioid OxyContin. Difference-in-differences estimates show that triplicate regulations induce unemployed and nonparticipating workers in triplicate states to return to employment about 10 percent faster than workers in nontriplicate states. These estimates imply a 1.1 percentage point higher level of employment in steady state.
[1] "Assessing the Main and Spillover Effects of Seattle's Minimum Wage on Establishment Decisions" (with Sharada Dharmasankar)
Regional Science and Urban Economics 99 (2023): 103865.
Abstract: We use the introduction of Seattle's local minimum wage to investigate the geographic effects of highly-targeted, city-level minimum wages on establishment entry and exit decisions. We explicitly consider the spillover effects of Seattle's minimum wage on business entry and exit decisions in the surrounding areas, in addition to the main effect. We use an event study framework to estimate these effects on two low-wage industries: hospitality and retail. We find strong, statistically significant spillover effects on establishment entries at the census block level in the hospitality and retail sectors 1-2 years after Seattle's minimum wage is announced relative to establishment churn before the minimum wage announcement. The estimated spillover effects are positive, implying an increase in the number of establishments entering the areas surrounding Seattle after the announcement of the minimum wage. There is a corresponding decline in entries for both sectors in Seattle itself. Our findings on exits are inconclusive. Both spillover and main effects are more concentrated in retail. We estimate our effects using a novel data set containing a full census of establishments with precise locations for businesses in the state of Washington. Our findings suggest that spillover effects on neighboring areas should be considered to holistically assess the impacts of city-level minimum wages.
