Manuscripts Under Review
Credit and Crises: How Fringe Credit Changes the Effect of Emergency Policies invited to revise & resubmit at Policy Studies Journal
Denizens rely on emergency cash transfers from the government and private credit during economic crises. These two sources work together: when the welfare state falls short, beneficiaries use credit to make ends meet. Existing literature on the credit-welfare state tradeoff demonstrates how credit use expands to cover shortcomings in government policies. However, we know less about how these two sources interact during economic crises when the welfare state undergoes a sudden expansion. Specifically, how does access to fringe credit change the effect of emergency cash transfers on indebtedness during and following crises? I leverage variation in payday loan regulation to analyze how access to these loans changes the effect of emergency cash transfers. Using a regression discontinuity in time design, I find that in counties with access to payday loans, indebtedness was lower following the COVID-19 stimulus checks’ disbursal in the short run than in counties with low or no access to payday loans. However, the effect in the long run is more mixed. This suggests that the stimulus checks’ effect on indebtedness varies by the state-level credit regulatory environment. The results illustrate that the same emergency policy can have materially different results based on beneficiaries’ access to credit.
Dissertation
Taking Credit: How Debt and its Regulation Structure the American Political Economy
Americans are increasingly reliant on private credit to make ends meet when the labor market is weak or the welfare state is insufficient. This reliance on credit is widespread: in February of 2025 the volume of credit cards and bank consumer loans alone reached approximately $1.1 trillion. However, Americans’ reliance on credit, and their access to credit products, is not equal. The most vulnerable borrowers use credit to pay for daily necessities like groceries, rent, and utilities, while the least vulnerable use credit for investment purposes. My dissertation analyzes the impact of 1) labor market and welfare state fluctuations on indebtedness 2) credit market regulations on borrowers’ economic outcomes and 3) advocates’ decisions about how and when to regulate particular credit options. I take a mixed methods approach, using causal inference methods and original data collection to answer the first two, while I use archival research to answer the last question.
Working Papers
From Relief to Roll-Off: The Crisis Welfare State and Overlooked Vulnerabilities with Angie Jo (MIT)
Regulating Risk: The Emerging Political Economy of “FringeTech” with Mallory SoRelle (Duke)
