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Xhulio Uruci

Xhulio Uruci

PhD Candidate
Email:
xuruci@umail.ucsb.edu
Office:
North Hall 3019
Website:
Personal Website
Publications:
Curriculum Vitae
Curriculum Vitae:
Animus or Beliefs? Consumer Discrimination In Uncertain Times

Biography

Xhulio is an economics PhD candidate with expertise in applied microeconomics, empirical strategies, and causal inference techniques, with a specialization in labor economics.

His research uses de-identified foot-traffic data to study the economic behavior of large, diverse populations. He is particularly interested in studying the relative roles of beliefs and preferences in people's everyday economic choices.

Another component of his broader research agenda is to study changes in geographic preferences of recent migrants, and the role that technology plays in those decisions. He examines research questions relating to the role of labor market conditions, social networks, political conditions, and policy in influencing recent changes in migration decisions.

Xhulio earned a B.S. in Math in 2014 from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Afterwards, he gained industry experience as a financial disputes analyst for a large telecommunications firm and as a consultant for a tech startup. During his graduate studies, he gained teaching experience both as an instructor for Financial Management (undergraduate level) and Math Camp for incoming PhD students (graduate level), and as a teaching assistant for upper- and lower-level economics courses.

Job Market Abstract Paper

"Animus or Beliefs? Consumer Discrimination In Uncertain Times"

Neither beliefs nor preferences are observed in most studies of discrimination, making it hard to discern the underlying motive. This study overcomes the challenge in a unique setting where motives prompt divergent responses. Using GPS mobile tracking data, I examine consumer discrimination against Chinese restaurants immediately following the first case of COVID-19. I adopt a simple identification strategy: a belief-driven discriminator, motivated by health concerns, discriminates only where there is elevated perceived risk of infection, whereas a taste-driven discriminator, motivated by ethnic animus, discriminates everywhere regardless of perceived risk. I rely on variation in service type to capture perceived health risk and variation in restaurant clientele to capture potential for anti-Chinese sentiment. I find strong evidence consistent with belief-based discrimination and inconsistent with taste-based discrimination