Economics

Ph.D.
University of California, Riverside
2013

Economics

M.S.
University of California, Riverside
2010

B.S.

Business Economics
University of California, Riverside
2008

Macroeconomics, Economics of Inequality, and Applied Econometrics

Intermediate Macroeconomic Theory, Econ 171

Macroeconomics is the study of the economy as a whole. This course will examine modern economic growth theory, consumption and saving behavior, investment, and unemployment. The study of these topics will provide tools that will be used to understand recent experiences in the United States and other countries.

Macroeconomic Theory I, Ecog 202

This Master's level course will study macroeconomic theory and its relation to general equilibrium analysis and examines stylized facts of the U.S. time series. The topics covered will include the centralized economy, economic growth, the decentralized economy, the monetary economy, asset pricing, real business cycles. This class is supported by DataCamp, an intuitive learning platform for data science and analytics. 

Distinguished Faculty Award

In 2020, Dr. Daniels was awarded the College of Arts and Sciences' Distinguished Faculty Award for Outstanding Teaching.

Student Debt Relief and Racial Wealth Gaps

https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/pandp.20241130

The Biden-Harris Administration released a plan to cancel federal student loans for 43 million borrowers on August 24, 2022. While the Supreme Court struck down the Biden-Harris student debt relief plan on June 30, 2023, the White House is now planning to use the Higher Education Act of 1965, a federal law that governs the student loan program, to bring about relief for student borrowers. This article estimates the potential impact of broad-based student debt relief on racial and ethnic wealth gaps. On average, federal student debt potentially eligible for relief explains 3 percent of the White-Black wealth gaps, suggesting that broad-based student debt relief could significantly mitigate racial wealth inequities.

Decomposing Lifetime-Earnings Differences between White, Black, and Hispanic Families

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4633622

This paper explores disparities between White, Black, and Hispanic families using a measure of lifetime earnings developed by Jacobs et al.(2022) for the Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF). Lifetime earnings are a particularly important measure of well-being, with relevance for wealth accumulation among other economic and social outcomes, but they are under-studied in the context of racial disparities. We describe how the different components of lifetime earnings—including annual earnings of workers, number of working household members, and number of years of employment during the working life—vary by race.

COVID-19 Recession: Young Adult Food Insecurity, Racial Disparities, and Correlates

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1054139X22006450

The COVID-19 pandemic has inflicted devastating health, social, and economic effects globally. This study examines the experiences of young adults in the United States with respect to food insecurity during the pandemic and factors associated with higher and lower risk for young adult food insecurity.

Who Benefits from Blanket Student Loan Forgiveness?

https://policiesforaction.org/blog/who-benefits-blanket-student-loan-forgiveness

Our analysis goes a step further in examining the projected impacts of these student debt relief plans for U.S. households by focusing across both income and racial lines. To provide these insights, we use the most recently available data from the Survey of Consumer Finances for 2019. These data are nationally representative and provide comprehensive information on families’ finances and demographic characteristics

Role of Cash and Costs of Inflation for Different Income Groups in the U.S.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0264999318306886

Due to the adverse effects of the Great Recession, economic inequality has received much attention in the macroeconomic literature. While U.S. monetary policy set by the Federal Reserve does not seek to directly influence economic inequality by operating under the dual mandate, it has indirect consequences on economic inequality as well as important redistributional effects as transaction patterns and cash constraints are not evenly distributed for different income groups. We build a monetary growth model where money is introduced via a Cash-In-Advance (CIA) constraint.

Student Debt and Labor Market Outcomes

https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/pandp.20191087

We study the impact of student debt on various labor market outcomes, namely, income, hourly wages, and hours worked. Using the NLSY97 and a difference-indifference approach, we find statistically significant differences in labor market outcomes for individuals who received a student loan versus those who received no student loan. We find that the difference in post- versus pre-college income is 8-9 percent higher for individuals that received a student loan relative to individuals who received no student loan. Further, we find evidence that this higher income is due to higher work hours.