Yixin Chen

Biography

Yixin is a PhD Candidate in Economics at UC Santa Barbara. Her research interests are in labor economics and applied microeconomics. Her work uses causal inference approaches to study policy-related questions in these fields. Issues include how female officers affect reports of domestic violence, how college basketball game days affect local sexual assault reports, and how health policies affect children’s nutrition levels.

Job Market Paper Abstract

"Female Officers and the Discovery of Domestic Violence"

Domestic violence (DV) is a crime that usually has female victims and is often under-reported. This paper studies the effect of having a female officer dispatched in the primary unit on the discovery of DV in physical abuse incidents in Milwaukee and Chicago. Using three-year calls for service data and conditional random assignment of officers in the dispatch process, the paper finds that the existence of a female officer in the primary unit scales up the likelihood of discovering DV in physical abuse incidents by 10% in Milwaukee. Analysis of data from Chicago indicates a similar effect. These results indicate that female officers play an important role in discovering DV.