About
My work sits at the intersection of economic development, agriculture, gender, and measurement in developing countries. I use large-scale household surveys and geospatial data to study how households, farms, and markets function, particularly in settings where data are scarce or difficult to collect. I earned my PhD at the Graduate Institute in Geneva and have worked with survey data at IFPRI, the IMF, and the World Bank.
I founded Dollar Scholars, a foundation that provides evidence-based financial education to adults who may never have had access to it. I also built its website and multilingual quiz.
Before economics, I spent seven years as a professional eSports commentator, calling Counter-Strike and Warcraft III tournaments from Seoul to Monza between 2004 and 2011. I still play Counter-Strike 2 and Overwatch 2, and raid as a bard in EverQuest.
Research
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Working paper
Spreading the love around: how does agricultural labor demand respond to temporary weather shocks?
Across six countries, farm households lean heavily on family labor during droughts and unusually wet periods. Women-headed households are significantly more constrained.
Abstract
This is the first study to separately identify labor demand responses to both unanticipated droughts and periods of above normal rainfall for three forms of agricultural labor that are central to agricultural production: family, hired, and mutual exchange labor. I use a simple parcel‑level model with three labor types and monitoring costs to study how family labor is reallocated across parcels during drought. In six countries I find small but statistically significant decreases in the share of hired labor during droughts and during periods of above-normal rainfall, indicating a strong reliance on family labor during shocks. I find that farm households appear to lean heavily on exchange labor by using exchange labor more frequently during periods of above-normal rainfall. Due to the heavy reliance on family labor, household size and the gender of the household head are important moderating factors. Women-headed households appear to be significantly more constrained in how they apply labor on family farms. My findings underscore that these labor types are distinct in how they respond to temporary weather shocks. The results of my analysis have important implications for policies targeted at stimulating agricultural labor markets.
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Work in progress
Assessing land area from above: evidence from Armenia
A randomized trial within a household survey: tracing fields on satellite imagery took 42% less time than measuring with GPS and improved on self-reported estimates, though it was less accurate than GPS.
Abstract
Using primary data collected by the World Bank in Armenia as part of a randomized controlled trial, we evaluate the use of a satellite image tracing to measure agricultural land in the context of a household survey. Satellite tracing offers several benefits, including a large reduction in the cost of measuring land, the potential to measure more parcels of land, and improved security for survey enumerators. We find the satellite tracing approach yields consistent results, and requires 42% less time than measuring with GPS, and provides value-added over self-reported estimates. Due to the potential cost savings, and other non-trivial benefits, we suggest that land measurement via satellite image tracing offers significant value, though is not as accurate as land area estimates conducted with a handheld GPS.
Teaching
He truly is one of, if not the best professor I have ever had at American University. He goes out of his way to have the class use real world examples of data rather than just having ‘Sally has 4 apples and Dave has 15 oranges’ style problems… He is everything a college professor should be and then some.
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2021 – 2024
Adjunct Professor · American University
Economic development, applied econometrics, and introductory micro- and macroeconomics, taught with real data and real-world examples.
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2015 – 2018
Graduate Institute, Geneva
Economics for International Affairs (2015–2016) and review sessions for Macroeconomics A (2017–2018).
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Community
Economics Discord
A 501(c)(3) educational nonprofit and partnered Discord server where more than 3,000 economics students, researchers and economists from around 30 countries help each other learn.
Dollar Scholars
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Founder
Dollar Scholars
A foundation for adult financial education, taught in person and grounded in research, because credit cannot help people who do not know how to use it.
Programming
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Web development
dollarscholars.org
I designed, coded and auto-translated the foundation's website: a custom Django site styled with Tailwind CSS and self-hosted with nginx on an Ubuntu server, rebuilt with security in mind after a cyberattack. It comes in 44 language versions, including four right-to-left languages (Arabic, Hebrew, Persian and Urdu), and volunteer translators can check and correct any version through a simple CSV workflow.
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Financial Knowledge Study
A multilingual financial-knowledge survey and quiz in 31 languages, plus five playful ones such as Pirate Speak and 1930s Mobster. Questions are adapted from Lusardi & Mitchell (2014) and the FINRA Foundation's National Financial Capability Study; translations were drafted with Microsoft Copilot and Deep Translator and reviewed by volunteers where available.
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Research computing
Data and geospatial analysis
Python (pandas) and Stata for large datasets such as household surveys, and GIS (ArcGIS) for satellite data, including mapping the VIIRS nighttime-lights composites behind this website.
eSports commentary
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2004 – 2011
eSports Commentator
Called Counter-Strike 1.6 and Warcraft III for broadcasters including DirecTV, MTV and MTV Korea, alongside casters like Alex “Vansilli” Nguyen, Glenn “Boomerman” Lane and Zach “Hoo_man” Godfrey.
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Press · MTV.com (archived)
Video game play-by-play comes with a deadly challenge