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/unintended consequences of labor and regional policies using a wide range of datasets, reduced-form analysis, and structural models.
Research Fields: Labor Economics, Urban Economics, Public Economics
[ CV ] [ Email: hoyoung@illinois.edu ]
Awards Received: AREUEA Hoyt Dissertation Honorable Mention (2024)
Grants Received: Russell Sage Foundation Dissertation Research
Media Coverage: Cardinal News, Business Insider
Presented at: 2021 Wisconsin Economics Association Conference, 2022 MEA Annual Conference, 2022 WEAI Conference, 2022 UEA North American Meeting, 2022 SMU-Jinan Conference on Urban and Regional Economics, LERA@ASSA 2023 Meeting, UEA Summer School 2023, SITE 2023, 2023 Remote Work Conference, 2023 UEA North American Meeting, 2023 KAEA Job Market Conference, 2023 SEA, 2024 ASSA-AREUEA, 2024 AREUEA National Conference, 2024 Yonsei Young Economist Workshop, SOLE 2024, DSE 2024, Chicago Fed Urban Economics Workshop, 2025 KWEN-ASSA
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]
"Does Health Insurance Reduce Consumption Risk? Evidence from Medicaid Expansions" (with Anita Mukherjee and Daniel W. Sacks) Revise and Resubmit, Journal of Public Economics
Abstract: We assess the consumption insurance value of Medicaid expansions. While Medicaid expansions improve physical and financial health, they may not smooth consumption risk because a great deal of uninsured medical spending is financed with bad debt and charity care. Using multiple methods, we find only small effects of Medicaid expansion throughout the consumption distribution. Our estimates, combined with an assumed utility function, imply near-zero insurance value to the uninsured from Medicaid expansion. While our estimates are statistically noisy, we can nevertheless rule out the possibility that a large share of Medicaid's value comes from reductions in consumption risk.
[2] "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.
Presented at: PAA 2022 Annual Conference (poster), MEA 2022 Annual Conference, SOLE 2022
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.
[1] "The Effects of the Opioid Crisis on Employment: Evidence from Labor Market Flows" (with Anita Mukherjee and Daniel W. Sacks) Accepted, Journal of Human Resources. [replication]
Media Coverage: HealthLawProf Blog
Abstract: We show that the opioid crisis slows transitions to employment from unemployment and non-participation. 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 non-participating workers in triplicate states to return to employment about 10 percent faster than workers in non-triplicate states. These estimates imply a 1.1 percentage point higher level of employment in steady state.
