Research
Research
Competition for limited seats in prestigious colleges generates a "rat-race" equilibrium effect, driving demand for parental investment. I develop and estimate a dynamic tournament model where each household chooses tutoring quality, tutoring hours, and student self-study hours. The model explains persistently high educational investment despite modest effects on test score, as students maintain investment to avoid dropping to lower tiers. Using the estimated model, I find that while parental investment reinforces earnings persistence across generations, self-study acts as a moderating force. Counterfactual analysis shows expanding elite college seats by 50% reduces tutoring expenditure by 25%.
Presented at: Hitotsubashi University, Stone Center at U Chicago, GRIPS, Toulouse Economics of Education workshop, University of Southampton, SOLE, SEHO, Kansai Labor, Yokohama National University, Korea University, Mannheim Family Economics Workshop, UNSW, ANU, Kyoto U, IAAE, University of Gothenburg, Missouri University S&T, KDI, KIEP, KLI, SEA, DSE Summer School, AASLE, SBU Game Theory, WEAI
This paper was previously presented as "Parental Investment, Child's Efforts, and Intergenerational Mobility"
Recognition: KAEA Best Job Market Paper Award (2022) (news article), Award for Excellence in Research (Dissertation Award) at Stony Brook University (2023)
"Alternative Methods to Test for Positive Assortative Mating," with Steven Stern. May 2025 New Draft
We propose easy econometric methods to test for positive assortative mating. Compared to existing methods such as by Siow (2015), our procedure avoids the cost associated with imposing positive assortative mating restrictions, and it allows for more general tests. The test does not require numerical optimization, and the test statistics can be calculated easily. We compare the power of the tests using simulation. The empirical application suggests that the null hypothesis of no assortative mating is rejected for selected years of CPS data that range from 1962 to 2019.
"Mitigating School Closures: Parental Responses and Tutoring Vouchers," with Taeyoung Kang and Sunham Kim. May 2025 New Draft
We investigate how reduced in-person school days affect educational inequality through parental responses. Exploiting quasi-experimental variation in school-level in-person days and a linked administrative–survey panel, we find that each ten-day loss increases household tutoring expenditure by 4 percent and within-school test-score dispersion by 25 percent. We build and estimate a household choice model where formal schooling and tutoring jointly generate test scores. Estimates suggest tutoring substitutes for in-person days and that closures burden low-income households disproportionately. Counterfactual simulations show that a means-tested tutoring-voucher program matches the overall inequality reduction of a universal scheme while cutting costs by 20 percent.
Media Coverage: The Kyunghyang Shinmun
Work in Progress
"Compensation vs. Reinforcement: Experimental Identification of Parental Aversion to Inequality in Offspring," with Felipe Barrera-Osorio, Leonardo Bonilla, Matías Busso, Sebastián Galiani, Juan Muñoz, and Juan Pantano. [Initial draft] [AEA Registry]
"Demand for Spousal Health," with Elena Capatina. [Initial draft]
"The Relationship Between Spouses' Wages Over Time," with Steven Stern. [major revision in progress]
"When Boys and Girls Mingle: Impact on Gender Polarization, Marriage, Fertility, and the Division of Household Chores," with Yarine Fawaz and Daniel Fernández-Kranz.