I am Professor of Economics in the Department of Economics and Senior Research Associate in the Center for Policy Research at Syracuse University. I am an applied econometrician who concentrates on applying discrete choice models and duration models to topics in urban and real estate economics, labor economics, aging and demography.  My demographic research examines the effect of liberalized maternity leave laws in Germany on the length of leave taken by German mothers.  My research on aging has been primarily connected with the effect of the provision of community-based long-term services in deterring nursing home entry.

     Some of my work in urban economics deals with audit methodology in relation to housing discrimination. I was a senior econometrician for the 1989 HUD-sponsored Housing Discrimination Study and have contributed to several studies using the HDS data.  One of my papers based on audit data, co-authored with Alex Stricker and John Yinger and published in the Southern Economic Journal, applies fixed-effect logit estimation to black and Hispanic sales audits.  A study written together with Stephen Ross and John Yinger and published in the Journal of Urban Economics presents a new method for measuring the extent of discrimination. A second study with Ross and Yinger examines how the characteristics of available housing affect housing discrimination. This study was published in the Review of Economics and Statistics. I was fortunate to get a grant from Upjohn to study the determinants of the location decision for foreign direct investment in the United States. More recently, I have worked with Paul Liu and Mary Lovely on the location of foreign direct investment in China. This work is forthcoming in the Review of Economics and Statistics.

     My work in real estate economics, co-authored with James Follain and Gyan Sinha and published in the Journal of Urban Economics examines the effect of the prepayment option value on the prepayment rate of Freddie Mac Plan A mortgages; the results indicate that the standard models that suggest prepayment will occur quickly for “in-the-money” options are incorrect. Finally, work with Wenyi Huang published in the Journal of Housing Research examines the determinants of prepayment and default for FHA-insured multifamily mortgages in a simultaneous econometric analysis.

Last updated by Jan Ondrich on 11 /29/11