Book
After the Spike: Population, Progress, and the Case for People. With Dean Spears. Published by Simon & Schuster in 2025 in the US. National Bestseller. UK and Indian editions now available. South Korean, Japanese, Russian, and Czech editions in progress. Please visit our Book website and related research papers for more information.
Selected Work in Progress
“Adverse Selection and Redistribution in Social Insurance Programs” with Timothy J. Layton and Adam Leive
“Age and Infertility Revisited” with Melissa LoPalo and Dean Spears.
Working Papers
“Is Less Really More? Comparing the Climate and Productivity Impacts of a Shrinking Population” with Kevin Kuruc, Sangita Vyas, Mark Budolfson, and Dean Spears.
“The Impact of Education on Family Formation: Quasi-Experimental Evidence from the UK” with Heather Royer
“Heat, Humidity, and Infant Mortality in the Developing World” with Dean Spears
Peer Reviewed Publications
“The Likelihood of Persistently Low Global Fertility” with Dean Spears. Journal of Economic Perspectives 40(1): 3–26.
“The Private Provision of Public Services: Evidence from Random Assignment in Medicaid” with Danil Agafiev Macambira, Anthony Lollo, Chima Ndumele, and Jacob Wallace. [slides] Accepted at The American Economic Review. [NBER working paper]
“The Risk of Narrow, Disputable Results in the U.S. Electoral College: 1836-2020” with Dean Spears. Accepted at The Review of Economics and Statistics. [NBER working paper]
“Long-term population projections: Scenarios of low or rebounding fertility” with Dean Spears, Sangita Vyas, and Gage Weston. PLOS One 19(4): e0298190.
“Heritable Fertility is Not Sufficient for Long-Term Population Growth.” Samuel Arenberg, Kevin Kuruc, Nathan Franz, Sangita Vyas, Nicholas Lawson, Melissa LoPalo, Mark Budolfson, Michael Geruso, and Dean Spears. Demography (2022) 59(6).
“What Difference Does a Health Plan Make? Evidence from Random Plan Assignment in Medicaid” with Timothy Layton and Jacob Wallace. American Economic Journal: Applied Economics 15.3 (2023): 341-379. [NBER working paper]
“The Two Margin Problem in Insurance Markets” with Timothy J. Layton, Grace McCormack, and Mark Shepard. Review of Economics and Statistics 105.2 (2023): 237-257 [SSRN working paper]
“Trading spaces: Medicare’s regulatory spillovers on treatment setting for non-Medicare patients” with Michael Richards. Journal of Health Economics 84 (2022):102624. [NBER working paper]
“Inversions in US Presidential Elections: 1836-2016” with Dean Spears and Ishaana Talesara. American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, 14.1 (2022): 327-57. Media Coverage: Bloomberg, New York Times, Salon, Slate, Vox [SSRN working paper]
“Upcoding: Evidence from Medicare on Squishy Risk Adjustment” with Timothy Layton. Journal of Political Economy, 128.3 (2020): 984-1026. Media Coverage: Bloomberg, NPR, Center for Public Integrity. Slides for instructors: [pdf] [tex] [SSRN working paper]
“Screening in Contract Design: Evidence from the ACA Health Insurance Exchanges” with Timothy Layton and Daniel Prinz. American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, 11.2 (2019): 64-107. Slides for instructors: [pdf] Paper: [pdf] [SSRN working paper]
“Do Larger Health Insurance Subsidies Benefit Patients or Producers? Evidence from Medicare Advantage” with Marika Cabral and Neale Mahoney. American Economic Review, 108.8 (2018): 2047-2048. Slides for instructors: [pdf] [SSRN working paper]
“Sanitation, Disease Externalities, and Anemia: Evidence From Nepal” with Diane Coffey and Dean Spears. The Economic Journal, 128 (2018): 1395-1432. [SSRN working paper] [NBER working paper]
“Neighborhood Sanitation and Infant Mortality” with Dean Spears. American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, 10 (2018): 125-62. Media Coverage: New YorkTimes, The Economist, Five Thirty Eight [NBER working paper]
“Selection in Health Insurance Markets and Its Policy Remedies” with Timothy Layton. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 31.4 (2017): 23-50.
“Demand Heterogeneity in Insurance Markets: Implications for Equity and Efficiency” Quantitative Economics, 8.3 (2017): 929-975. [SSRN working paper]
“Tradeoffs in the Design of Health Plan Payment Systems: Fit, Power and Balance” with Thomas McGuire. Journal of Health Economics 47 (2016): 1-19. [SSRN working paper]
“Insurance Fraud in the Workplace? Evidence from a Dependent Verification Program” with Harvey Rosen. Journal of Risk and Insurance 82.4 (2015): 921-946.
“Racial Disparities in Life Expectancy: How Much Can the Standard SES Variables Explain?” Demography, 49.2 (2012): pages 553-574.
Other Publications
“Will Personalized Medicine Mean Higher Costs for Consumers?” with Anupam Jena and Timothy Layton. Harvard Business Review, March 1, 2018.
“The Many Definitions of Social Security Privatization” with Don Fullerton. The Economists’ Voice: Vol. 3: No. 4, 2006. Reprinted in The Economists’ Voice: Top Economists Take On Today’s Problems. Eds. Joseph Stiglitz, Aaron Edlin, and J. Bradford DeLong. Columbia University Press, 2007.