Research

Setting the Price of Fertility examines the market for egg-donor compensation after courts invalidated industry guidelines as unlawful price fixing. Using an original dataset of more than 500 programs, I find that compensation rose after the guidelines disappeared, but most programs continued to follow the former caps. I argue that informal norms surrounding the commodification of women’s reproductive labor can suppress competition even after explicit restraints are removed, revealing both the promise and limits of antitrust in morally contested markets.

An Antitrust Approach to Sex Equality argues that antitrust can help reduce gender inequality by protecting competition in markets that substitute for unpaid household and reproductive labor, including childcare, contraception, infant formula, and reproductive healthcare. Market power in these sectors harms women as consumers and can limit their participation in paid work. Enforcing competition therefore promotes both consumer welfare and gender equality.

Religious Riders and the Sherman Act argues that contracts between religious and secular hospitals that require secular hospitals to restrict reproductive healthcare can violate Section 1 of the Sherman Act by suppressing output and increasing prices. The Article distinguishes unilateral religious exercise from agreements that restrain independent competitors, arguing that religious liberty should not provide an exemption from antitrust law.

Partisan Bridges to Bipartisanship asks why some legislators are willing to cross party lines despite increasing polarization. I develop a theory of “partisan bridging,” which argues that legislators whose personal policy preferences diverge from their party can become important coalition builders. I test the theory using state contraceptive-coverage mandates and find that moderate Republican women sometimes played a critical role in building support for those policies. More broadly, the paper shows how gender and other cross-cutting characteristics can create opportunities for bipartisan policymaking even in highly partisan environments.

Gender Differences in Legislator Responsiveness, coauthored with Danielle Thomsen, uses an audit experiment of roughly 6,000 state legislators to show that women were more responsive to constituents than men—even while engaging in greater legislative activity. The gender gap was largest in conservative districts, suggesting that women may exert greater effort when facing higher barriers to office.

The Role of Judge Gender examines gender inequality in federal clerkship hiring. Using federal clerkship data, we find that male and conservative judges are less likely to hire women, showing that institutional gatekeepers—not applicant differences alone—shape inequality in elite professional pipelines.