Writing
Essays and commentary on Agglomerations and in outside publications.
Reports and analyses are on the Policy page, alongside the three policy designs I work on most.
Essays and Commentary
Essays from Agglomerations, EIG's newsletter. Co-authors are listed on each card.
The Babysitter Clause and the Problem of Partial Noncompete Bans
Partial noncompete bans that carve out workers by income, occupation, or industry — down to Washington, D.C.'s exemption for casual babysitters — end up arbitrary, confusing, and hard to enforce, which makes the case for full bans.
Fixing the U.S. Retirement System: A Q&A
A Q&A on the coverage gap, auto-enrollment, and the design choices behind the Retirement Savings for Americans Act.
How to end low-wage work forever, Part 2: the FAQ
Common objections to the 80-80 wage subsidy, addressed: incidence, take-up, fiscal cost, and interactions with the safety net.
The jobs chart that really has us worried
Reading labor-market slack through involuntary part-time work, and what it signals about worker bargaining power.
How many manufacturing workers are there?
What counts as a manufacturing worker, and why the number depends on which definition you use.
Where any SNAP lapse will bite hardest
Which communities would feel the sharpest effects of any interruption in SNAP support.
Fat Bear Week and the Fate of the World
AI, productivity, and the human-judgment problems that policy still has to solve.
Abundance: the Missing Piece
Supply, implementation, and what abundance arguments need to say about institutions.
How to end low-wage work forever
A public-facing introduction to the 80-80 wage subsidy proposal and the labor-market problem it is designed to solve.
Tariffs and Manufacturing Jobs: Three Big Problems
Three problems with the standard claim that tariffs bring back durable manufacturing jobs.
Opportunity Zones: A Quiet Revolution in Housing Policy
Connecting new evidence on Opportunity Zones to broader housing-supply debates.
Transfers, deficits, and your community: How will you know?
An interactive tour of the county-level transfer dependence behind the Great "Transfer"-mation report.
No, we are not producing too many STEM graduates
Why the argument that the U.S. has oversupplied STEM labor does not hold up.
The economic geography of the 2024 elections
Mapping the 2024 results onto county-level economic conditions and demographic change.
An inflation puzzle of the 2024 election
Why post-2021 inflation hit voters harder than headline indicators suggested.
Who's left out of America's retirement savings system?
Who falls outside the U.S. retirement savings system, and what the coverage gap looks like by income, employer size, and worker classification.
Guest Writing
Pieces written for outside publications.
Minimum Wage Laws and App-Based Workers
Guest essay on Liya Palagashvili and Revana Sharfuddin's newsletter, covering minimum-wage policy and platform-based work.