Publications

Publication: Vog: Using Volcanic Eruptions to Estimate the Impact of Air Pollution on Student Test Scores

June 25, 2025

We pair variation stemming from volcanic eruptions with the census of Hawaii’s public schools’ student test scores to estimate the impact of PM2.5 and SOM2 on student performance. Increased particulate pollution decreases test scores. These results are concentrated among schools with the highest long-term average levels of pollution. The effects of PM2.5 are larger for […]

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Publication: Rural health disparities: Evidence from Hawaiʻi

June 20, 2025

This article examines how rurality contributes to health disparities in the Hawaiian Islands using data from the June 2023 wave of a statewide health survey. We analyze self-reported health outcomes alongside sociodemographic factors including age, gender, race/ethnicity, income, education, and disability. Our findings show that rurality is one of the strongest predictors of poorer health […]

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How New Mass Transit Affects Labor Markets: The Honolulu Skyline

April 25, 2025

Understanding how the new rail system in Oahu is reshaping decisions around work, housing, and commuting can inform future transit investments. To get a more in-depth picture of how the Honolulu Skyline is influencing the labor market, I developed a spatial model with highly detailed data that allowed me to analyze commuting times, the employment […]

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Scaling biocultural initiatives can support nature, food, and culture from summit to sea

March 18, 2025

Biocultural nature-based solutions provide many social, cultural, and ecological benefits. Yet, there has been little research on related land-sea societal benefits, hindering our ability to finance and scale these solutions. To help fill this gap, we evaluate the land-sea benefits of scaling biocultural restoration initiatives in Hawaiʻi, including multi-strata agroforestry and high-elevation silvopasture combined with […]

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New Study Reveals Food Insecurity as a Major Driver of Mental Health Challenges in Hawaiʻi

February 24, 2025

A study published today in Frontiers in Public Health provides a comprehensive examination of how socioeconomic factors, particularly food insecurity, shape mental health outcomes among working adults in Hawaiʻi. The research, co-led by Ruben Juarez, the UHERO-HMSA Professor in Health Economics, and Binh Le, a Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of Hawaiʻi Economic Research Organization […]

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Carbon benefits through agroforestry transitions on unmanaged fallow agricultural land in Hawaiʻi

February 12, 2025

There are growing efforts to incorporate agroforestry into ecosystem service incentive programs. Indigenous and other place-based multi-strata agroforestry systems are important conservation and agricultural strategies, yet their ecosystem services, including carbon sequestration benefits, have received little research attention. To fill this gap, we draw on interviews with agroforestry practitioners and ecosystem service modeling in Hawaiʻi […]

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Co-Production of Knowledge at Sumida Farm Trains a New Generation of Community-Engaged Scientists

May 13, 2024

A collaboration between the University of Hawai‘i (UH), Hawai‘i Sea Grant, and the fourth generation of Sumida farmers focuses on training a new generation of locally engaged scientists. A key partner is UHERO, an interdisciplinary research group that informs public policy across Hawai‘i. The overarching goal is to build a healthy, resilient, and sustainable agricultural […]

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Threshold regressions for more objective urban and regional policies

April 4, 2024

Abstract: Achieving policy goals often requires different policies for different places, but the assignment of places to policies is often arbitrary, political, or based on anecdotal evidence. We argue that there are simple analytical techniques to improve policy by allocating places into corresponding ‘policy regimes’ in a more objective manner. We show how to implement […]

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Male-biased sex ratios, marriage, and household composition in early twentieth-century Hawai‘i

January 31, 2024

Abstract: Immigration to Hawai‘i between 1870 and 1930 led to a more than six-fold increase in population and high and rapidly varying sex ratios in the Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Filipino, and Caucasian populations of marriageable age. Using complete populations of the 1910, 1920, and 1930 Territorial Censuses of Hawai‘i, we estimate how male-biased ethnic sex […]

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