MACRO Seminar: Levi Crews, University of California, Los Angeles

Speaker

Levi Crews, University of California, Los Angeles

Title

Skills, sorting, and optimal dynamic spatial policy

Abstract

I study optimal spatial policies in a quantitative dynamic spatial model with forward-looking migration decisions, human capital investments, and local human capital spillovers. I characterize the constrained efficient allocation and show how to decentralize it with a simple set of policy instruments: a location-contingent "body tax" and a location-by-skill-contingent "brain subsidy." Using data on US cities and existing estimates of the spillover elasticities, preliminary results suggest that the US economy would benefit from further concentrating its high-skilled workers in a small number of currently high-wage cities.

Biography

Welcome! I am an Assistant Professor of Economics at UCLA. My research focuses on macroeconomics, spatial economics, and international trade, with a particular focus on how the spatial allocation of economic activity affects macro aggregates and welfare in the long run.

Before UCLA, I was an IES Postdoctoral Fellow at Princeton University for AY 2023-24. I received my Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Chicago in 2023.