SAMUEL T. LIU

Education

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Ph.D. degree in Economics, 2000.

Fields of Specialty: Labor Economics, Econometrics, Finance, Industrial Organization.

Princeton University

B.A. degree in Economics, summa cum laude, 1995.

Top student in the Economics department - Halbert White ’72 Prize in Economics.

Experience

CORNERSTONE RESEARCH

Manager.

Prepared economic expert witness testimony for complex business litigation including antitrust, intellectual property, and general damages cases. Conducted economic and econometric research with Professors at Stanford, U.C. Berkeley, M.I.T., Princeton University, and U.S.C in diverse industries such as pharmaceuticals, petroleum, manufacturing, and telecommunications. Analyzed and forecasted data, estimated regression models, analyzed survey data.

2000 - 2006.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Teaching Assistant. Principles of Microeconomics.

Prepared and gave lectures three times a week. Prepared exams and weekly assignments. Two semesters as a recitation instructor for Professors Jonathan Gruber and Franklin Fisher.

1997 - 2000.

Research Assistant. Professor Jonathan Gruber.

Conducted research for “Tax Subsidies for Employer-Provided Health Insurance,” written with James Poterba, Brookings Meetings on Public Finance

1995.

PRINCETON UNIVERSITY

Research Assistant. Professor David Card (now at U.C. Berkeley).

Conducted research for “Minimum Wages and Employment: A Case Study of the Fast Food Industry in

New Jersey and Pennsylvania,” American Economic Review September 1994; “Educational Attainment,

School Quality and Student Achievement,” NBER Working Paper 6766, October 1998; Myth and

Measurement: The New Economics of the Minimum Wage (Princeton University Press, 1995).

1993 - 1995.

Skills

STATA and SAS for complex statistical and econometric analysis in PC and UNIX environments.

Awards

George and Obie Shultz Fund Grant, 1999.

Albert Zesiger Fellowship, 1995-1997.

National Science Foundation Graduate Fellowship Honorable Mention, 1995.

Halbert White ’72 Prize in Economics, 1995.

National Merit Scholar, 1991.

Papers

“The Effects of Immigration on Native Educational Outcomes.”

Despite popular concerns that immigrants are harming the quality of education for native-born students, surprisingly little research has been conducted to determine if this is actually the case. I use a reform in U.S. immigration policy as a natural experiment to estimate the effects of immigration on the educational outcomes of native-born pupils in Texas. The reform caused a large decrease in immigration in schools along the Texas-Mexico border relative to non-border schools. OLS estimates suggest a negative association between percentage immigrant and native pupil outcomes within schools. However, these estimates are potentially biased downwards by omitted variables and endogeneity. Using the reform in immigration policy as an exogenous source of variation in immigration, instrumental variable and differences-in-differences estimates suggest that immigrants have a small positive effect on the test outcomes of native Hispanics and no significant effect on native White students. I test these results for alternative explanations such as mean reversion and

I provide evidence that resources provided for immigrants help native Hispanic students.

“Grouped-data Instrumental Variables Estimation of the Labor Supply Elasticity.”

Past estimates of the labor supply elasticity suffer from problems of measurement error and the failure of tests of overidentifying restrictions. I use Angrist’s method of efficient Wald estimation, where categorical variables serving to group the data can be used as instrumental variables, to overcome these problems. After applying this technique, my estimates of the labor supply elasticity range from 0.133 to 0.276.

“Estimating Education Production Functions with State SAT Scores.”

I analyze a large panel data set of state average SAT scores to determine the effect of education policies on student achievement. I examine methods of correcting for selection bias.

Interests / Activities

Triathlons, running, volleyball, tennis, hiking, backpacking, travel.

Captain, Princeton Club Volleyball Team 1991-1995.

MIT Intercollegiate Volleyball Team 1996-1998.