Department of Economics
Assistant Professor of Economics
Southern Methodist University
I go by Woo.
I am an applied microeconomist whose research integrates family and urban economics.
I study how economic conditions and public policy shape migration, education, and childbearing, and how demographic change reshapes labor markets and inequality across places. I assemble data from sources ranging from administrative records and surveys to high-frequency transaction data. I combine these data with quasi-experimental designs and economic models to identify causal effects and evaluate consequences for earnings, health, and household welfare.
Robot adoption shifts high-school coursework toward college preparation, revealing course choice as an early margin of adjustment to automation.
Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization
Childbirth sharply raises maternal mental-health diagnoses, especially after a second birth, while baby bonuses do little to mitigate the increase.
Journal of Human Resources
Local cash transfers raise fertility and reduce the male bias in the sex ratio at birth, while changing the composition of births.
Labour Economics
Public-sector relocations generate roughly one private-sector job per relocated public-sector job, with gains concentrated in receiving neighborhoods.
American Economic Review: Insights
Spatially targeted lockdowns lower economic losses relative to uniform restrictions at a common case count.
I teach urban economics and applied econometrics at the undergraduate, master’s, and Ph.D. levels. My teaching emphasizes economic reasoning, careful empirical work, and independent thinking.
Courses and teaching approach