Patrick Testa

Biography

Patrick Testa is an Assistant Professor of Economics at Tulane University. He received his Ph.D. from the University of California, Irvine in 2019. His current research focuses on the political economy of development and uses a combination of empirical economic history and microeconomic theory. His most recent work seeks to understand the urban and regional effects of forced migration, as well as how institutions and culture interact with economic geography.

Research Interests

• Forced migration and population shocks
• The spatial distribution of economic development
• Public goods and development
• Political and ethnic conflict
• Economics of identity

List of Publications

1. “Education and propaganda: Tradeoffs to public education provision in nondemocracies" (2018), Journal of Public Economics, 160: 66-81.
   Link: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0047272718300410
   Research areas: Public goods and development, political and ethnic conflict

List of Working Papers

1. “The economic legacy of expulsion: Lessons from postwar Czechoslovakia,”
   Conditionally Accepted at the Economic Journal.
   Link: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3251541
   Research areas: forced migration and population shocks, political and ethnic conflict

2. “Shocks and the spatial distribution of economic activity: The role of institutions,"
   Conditionally Accepted at Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization.
   Link: Currently no permanent link
   Research areas: forced migration and population shocks, spatial distribution of economic development

3. “Resource blessing? Oil, risk, and religious communities as social insurance in the U.S. South,” CAGE Working Paper.
   Link: https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/economics/research/centres/cage/manage/publications/wp513.2020.pdf
   Research areas: economics of identity, public goods and development