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Curriculum Vitae
Education

McMaster University: Ph.D - Economics, 2017

Dissertation: "Four Essays on Inequality". Committee: Michel Grignon, Mike Veall, Phil DeCicca

Fields of Specialization

Applied Micro, Applied Econometrics, Public Economics, Health Economics

Nominated for Dissertation Award

McMaster University: MA - Economic Policy, 2012

Research Project: Call me maybe - Assessing the stability of private donations to charities, does contacting your donors make a difference?

Research Interests

Inequity, policy analysis/program evaluation, and related econometric techniques

Catawba College: BS - Sustainable Business & Community Development, 2010

Publications

We examine the roles of subnational and national governments in Canada and the USA vis-à-vis protective public health response in the onset phase of the global COVID-19 pandemic. This period was characterized in both countries by incomplete and incorrect information as well as the uncertainty regarding which level of government should be responsible for which policies. The crisis represents an opportunity to study how national and subnational governments respond to such policy challenges. In this paper, we present a unique dataset which catalogues the policy responses of US states and Canadian provinces as well as those of the respective federal governments.

A companion paper to Here Comes the SUN, this work investigates potential correlates between expectations for healthcare and socio-economic status that could result in biased conclusions about the prevalence and magnitude of inequity of access when using self-assessed unmet need as a measure. This article shows that many of the conclusions we have drawn about inequality that are based on self-assessed unmet need may be due not to differential access to care, but rather to differences in beliefs about what constitutes`unmet need’.

We show theoretically that the traditional methods of measuring equality of access are unreliable when preferences for healthcare vary by socio-economic status. We propose and discuss similar issues facing self-assessed measures of unmet need. An empirical analysis finds that self-assessed unmet need as measured in Canadian health surveys has predictive power for lower health status in future periods, resolving one of the issues potentially facing this measure of inequity.

Conference Presentations
Teaching

2017

“Ask Me About My Day: A Framework for Assessing Bias in Subjective Survey Data.”

CRDCN National Conference - Montreal, QC

“Oh Brother How Art Thou? Variations in Propensity to Self-Report
Unmet Need.”

Canadian Economics Association - Antigonish, NS

2016

“Here Comes the SUN: Self-Assessed Unmet Need, Worsening Health
Outcomes, and Healthcare Inequity."

Canadian Economics Association - Ottawa, ON

References

Mike Veall - veall AT mcmaster.ca

Michel Grignon - grignon AT mcmaster.ca

Phil DeCicca - ppdecicca AT bsu.edu

2017 - Winter, Spring; 2016 - Fall

McMaster University: Econ 2D03 - Economic Issues

McMaster University: Econ 2GG3 - Consumer Theory

2016 - Summer

Teaching Assistant

Graduate Econometrics 1, Introduction to Econometrics

Econometrics

Macroeconomics

Introduction to Macroeconomics, Intermediate Macroeconomics 1

Microeconomics

Introduction to Economics, Producer Theory, Microeconomics for Public Policy (Graduate)

Topics Courses

Economic Issues, Economics & Public Policy, Economics of Sport,
Environmental Economics, International Finance, Trade Economics

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