My name is Lillian Rusk, and I'm a PhD candidate in Economics at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. I'm on the 2023-24 job market.

I specialize in applied microeconomics and labor economics, and I'm currently focused on projects that examine the determinants of human capital.  

Human capital development occurs during childhood and adolescence when individuals have little agency. Instead, it's often parents who are the primary decision-makers. Motivated by this, I study the determinants of parenting behavior in my job market paper, “The Origins of Parenting." 

In a second and ongoing project, I study the long-run impacts of juvenile incarceration on human capital development. I do so by linking administrative datasets in the state of Texas and leveraging a set of natural experiments. More information can be found here.

My CV is here. Feel free to contact me at LRusk@chicagobooth.edu.