Cowles Post-Docs reflect before heading to the professoriate

During my postdoc at Cowles, I focused primarily on finishing and submitting projects I had started in graduate school, while also beginning several new projects and collaborations in industrial organization and health economics that I’m excited to continue developing.

The postdoc gave me a huge amount of time and flexibility to focus on research, which made it possible to make substantial progress on both existing and new work. I also really enjoyed being part of the IO and health groups at Yale. Both communities were incredibly active and welcoming, and I benefited a great deal from the seminars, workshops, and many conversations with faculty, students, and fellow postdocs throughout the year.

I have spent this postdoc year working on ongoing and new research projects at the intersection of industrial organization and urban economics. Among other things, I submitted my job market paper to a journal, and I’m now working on revising it for resubmission. I also started work on two new projects with Yale coauthors - the first with Cody Cook, and the second with Costas Arkolakis, Ken Gillingham, and Seung-Yong Yoo. I have appreciated having the time and space this year to focus on getting my ongoing research over the finish line and expanding my research agenda for the future.

I have also enjoyed being part of the econ department here at Yale - particularly getting to know the faculty, students, and postdocs. The industrial organization group has been a vibrant and welcoming community. I’ve had the opportunity to be exposed to frontier research and participate in wide-ranging conversations at weekly seminars, student workshops, and lunches. I even dipped a toe into PhD student advising. (I was so alarmed the first time a student asked to meet with me about their research - I’m still not so far from being a student myself!) Finally, I’ve formed what I hope will be lasting friendships with my fellow postdocs.

During my postdoc here, I worked on my job market paper, a model of gerrymandering in which the act of redistricting itself shapes voter behavior through primary elections. I also brought to submission a paper on committee decision-making under reputation concerns, with an application to the Federal Open Market Committee, and contributed to a revision of an experimental paper on complexity in decision making and its relationship to ambiguity aversion. Beyond the research, the postdoc gave me the rare opportunity to engage closely with the exceptional theory faculty in the Department of Economics, as well as the many visitors who passed through each semester. The intellectual environment was invaluable, and the human dimension of it, the conversations, the sense of belonging to a community of people who care deeply about ideas, is something I will carry with me.

I enjoyed my year as a postdoc at Cowles. I did both my predoc and Ph.D. in the same department, so my year in New Haven helped open me up to new topics and perspectives. It’s been a joy to engage with the faculty and postdocs at the Econ department, the School of Management, the School of Public Health, and the Law School. Everyone has been welcoming, supportive, and helpful, especially with advice on research and the transition towards becoming a faculty member.

This past year, I’ve used most of my time to finish and submit papers. I left graduate school with a number of almost-done projects and some very early stage ideas. The focused research time and support from the Cowles postdoc have helped me bring my existing projects towards completion, opening up runway for the rest of my agenda.

During my post-doc, I focused primarily on submitting my job market paper and on launching several new research projects that I am genuinely excited about. The post-doc also gave me the opportunity to attend a wide range of seminars, particularly in international trade and industrial organization, which were both stimulating and directly relevant to my own work. I also had the fantastic opportunity to co-organize two Trade Days.

More broadly, the post-doc was a remarkably privileged experience. With no teaching or administrative responsibilities to speak of, I had the rare luxury of dedicating my time entirely to research. On top of that, the position gave me the opportunity to travel and meet many researchers, which helped me gather diverse feedback throughout the year.

What made the experience especially enjoyable was how friendly and approachable everyone was. Whether in formal settings or over a spontaneous lunch or coffee, people were genuinely generous with their time and ideas. That combination of intellectual richness and personal warmth made this one of the most rewarding periods of my career so far.