Identity & Expertise

Substantively, my research bridges public management and public policy, often through the lens of public budgeting and finance. I am particularly interested in how policy failure, public law, performance measurement systems, and bureaucratic discretion broadly effects public service delivery and advances to social equity. Methodologically, I leverage robust causal inference approaches in qualitative and quantitative methods, including the use of experimental and quasi-experimental designs.

* Young Girl Reading, Jean Honoré Fragonard

Dissertation

My dissertation, "Managing Financial Resources to Achieve Normative Goals: The Role of Fiscal Shocks, Policy Design, and Complex Compliance Regimes", explores bureaucratic discretion of financial resources through an interdisciplinary lens. I leverage theories and frameworks from public administration, political science, economics, and education to examine the effect of policy design, public law, and fiscal uncertainty on financial resource administration within three different policy environments. I employ advanced quasi-experimental and narrative methodologies.

Essay 1: Fiscal Shocks

"Relationship between Tuition-Free Policies and Enrollment and Revenue during Economic Shocks"

I undergo a policy analysis within an econometric lens by leveraging theories of resource dependency and models of supply and demand. At the organizational level, I question if tuition-free policies are an effective public management tool at not only increasing racially minority student enrollment but also increasing revenue within higher education institutions, particularly during fiscal shocks. Free college policies have long been understood as a social equity objective that meets operative financial aims, yet few have questioned if this upholds during recessions. 
* "Panel 58", Jacob Lawrence 

Essay 2: Policy Design

"Managing Fiscal Shocks Through State Budget Stabilization Funds & Fiscal Federalism"

I analyze the performance of state legislation systems in managing savings during economic uncertainty by contending with fiscal fedearlism. At the state level, and examining the differential effects across two types of fiscal shocks, I argue that intergovernmental revenue buffers states from disadvantaging state savings, even during recessions, but that this relationship is moderated by rainy day fund’s institutional structure and policy design. By seeking to advantage long-term savings during fiscal uncertainty, the value of sustaining economy is a normative aim during spending crises. 
* Untitled, Emily Faith Morgan, University Communications

Essay 3: Compliance

"Public procurement and European Union integration: a systematic review"



Paper published in Journal of European Integration
I present a narrative review examining articles that have situated European Union (EU) public procurement through numerous perspectives of integration with an emphasis on the theoretical frameworks adopted throughout its literature. The functional effects of public procurement on EU integration have largely been neglected outside legal scholarship. However, I illustrate how government contracting is leveraged as a crucial policy tool that has considerably shaped European integration at large. Findings place public procurement as applied to EU integrative literature in numerous disciplines, wherein its theoretical breadth rather than depth is a defining feature.
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