Working Papers

Minority Representation in Local Government
(with Daniel Jones, Tate Twinam, and Randall Walsh)
NBER working paper W25192.
Revisions Requested: American Economic Journal: Economic Policy.

Water and Waste: A History of Reluctant Policymaking in U.S. Cities
Invited contribution to proposed volume: Managing Water: Lessons from History for University of Pittsburgh Press’ History of the Urban Environment Series (Edited by: Joel Tarr and Martin Melosi).

Historical Newspaper Data: A Researcher’s Guide and Toolkit
(with Walker Hanlon).

Disease and the Municipalization of Private Waterworks in Nineteenth Century England and Wales
(with Werner Troesken and Nicola Tynan)
NBER working paper W22553.

Land Use Regulation and Individual Welfare
(with Tate Twinam)

Do Markets Reward Constitutional Reform? Lessons from America’s State Debt Crisis

Publications

Culture and the Historical Fertility Transition
(with Walker Hanlon)
Previously circulated as NBER working paper W25752.
Accepted: The Review of Economic Studies.
Coverage: VoxEU

Re-Evaluating the Long-Term Effects of In Utero Exposure to the 1918 Influenza Pandemic
(with Ryan Brown, Joseph Ferrie, Martin Saavedra, and Duncan Thomas)
Accepted: The Journal of Political Economy.
*This paper subsumes NBER working paper W24725: Fetal Shock or Selection? The 1918 Influenza Pandemic and Human Capital Development (by Beach, Ferrie, and Saavedra) and “On the Long-Term Effects of the 1918 U.S. Influenza Pandemic” (by Brown and Thomas).
Replication Package.

Water Infrastructure and Health in U.S. Cities
Accepted: Regional Science and Urban Economics.

Segregation and the Initial Provision of Water in the United States
(with John Parman and Martin Saavedra)
American Economic Association: Papers and Proceedings, 2022. 112.

Recessions, Mortality, and Migration Bias: Evidence from the Lancashire Cotton Famine
(with Vellore Arthi and Walker Hanlon)
American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, 2022. 14(2).
Previously circulated as NBER working paper W23507.

The 1918 Influenza Pandemic and its Lessons for COVID-19
(with Karen Clay and Martin Saavedra)
The Journal of Economic Literature, 2022. 60(1): 41-84.

Losing by Less? Import Competition, Unemployment Insurance Generosity, and Crime
(with John Lopresti)
Economic Inquiry, 2019. 57(2): 1163-81.

Coal Smoke and Mortality in an Early Industrial Economy
(with Walker Hanlon)
The Economic Journal, 2018. 128(615): 2652-75.

Gridlock: Ethnic Diversity in Government and the Provision of Public Goods
(with Daniel Jones)
American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, 2017. 9(1): 112-36.

Business as Usual: Politicians with Business Experience, Government Finances, and Policy Outcomes
(with Daniel Jones)
Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 2016. 131: 292-307.

Typhoid Fever, Water Quality, and Human Capital Formation
(with Joseph Ferrie, Martin Saavedra, and Werner Troesken)
The Journal of Economic History, 2016. 76(1): 41-75. 
Awarded Arthur H. Cole prize for best article 2015-16.

Mitigating the Effects of Low Birth Weight: Evidence from Quasi-randomly Assigned Adoptees
(with Martin Saavedra)
American Journal of Health Economics, 2015. 1(3): 275-96.

Time or Spot? A Reevaluation of Amsterdam Market Data Prior to 1747
(with Stephen Norman and Douglas Wills)
Cliometrica, 2013. 7 (1): 61-85.