Short Bio
Dr. Anita Alves Pena is an Assistant Professor of Economics at Colorado State University. Her research interests are in public sector economics, labor economics, and economic development and her current research relates to undocumented and documented immigration, public policy, poverty, and agricultural labor markets. Dr. Pena received her Ph.D. in Economics from Stanford University in 2007, M.A. in Economics from Stanford University in 2004, and B.A. in Economics from the Johns Hopkins University in 2001. She currently teaches Microeconomic Theory, Public Economics, and Microeconomics of Development at the graduate level, as well as undergraduate Intermediate Microeconomics, Introduction to Econometrics, and Economics of Public Finance.Teaching
Econ 306: Intermediate Microeconomics (undergraduate)
Econ 320: Economics of Public Finance (undergraduate)
Econ 335: Introduction to Econometrics (undergraduate)
Econ 520: Public Economics I (graduate)
Econ 706: Microeconomic Theory II (Ph.D.)
Working Papers
The Effect of Continuing Education Participation on Agricultural Worker Outcomes
The Effect of Natural Disasters on Local Nonprofit Activity (with Sammy Zahran and Stephan Weiler)
Implications of the Great Recession for U.S. Farmworkers and Agricultural Labor Policy: Evidence from the National Agricultural Worker Survey” (with Maoyong Fan)
A Note on Environmental Disamenities and Age-Specific Migration Rates (with Sammy Zahran, Stephan Weiler, and Andrew Prelog)
Victimization and Social Distance: Evidence from Los Angeles Administrative Law Enforcement Data and Neighborhood Characteristics (with Gregory J. DeAngelo and Anne Morrison Piehl)
Do Minimum Wage Laws Affect People Who Are Not Covered?: Evidence from U.S. Agriculture
The Effect of Educational Attainment on Intranational Migration in the Context of Development: The Case of Vietnam (with Le Thanh Thuy and Robert Kling)
The Effect of Health Care Take-up on Social Participation and Leisure among the Middle-Aged and Elderly in Taiwan (with Chun-Wei Lin)
Publications
Journal Articles
Undocumented Immigrants and the Welfare State: The Case of Regional Migration and U.S. Agricultural Labor, forthcoming Journal of Regional Science (January 2014) (previous version: Stanford Center for International Development Working Paper No. 331)
Poverty Measurement for a Binational Population, forthcoming Migration Letters, Volume 10, Issue 2 (May 2013): 254-269
Undocumented Immigration and the Business of Farm Labor Contracting in the U.S., American Journal of Business, Special Issue "Immigration: Impacts on Business," Volume 27, Issue 1 (2012): 10-26
Economies of Scale and Gender Discrimination in Transition: The Case of the Republic of Tajikistan, forthcoming Applied Economics, Volume 44, Issue 18 (June 2012): 2265-2281
Maternal Benzene Exposure and Low Birth Weight Risk in the United States: A Natural Experiment in Gasoline Reformulation (with Sammy Zahran, Stephan Weiler, and Howard W. Mielke), Environmental Research, Volume 112 (January 2012): 139-146
Immigration, Legal Status, and Public Aid Magnets: Evidence from the U.S. Census, National Tax Association Proceedings, 102nd Annual Conference on Taxation (2011): 260-265
Poverty, Legal Status, and Pay Basis: The Case of U.S. Agriculture, Industrial Relations, Volume 49, Issue 3 (July 2010): 429-456 (previous version: Stanford Center for International Development Working Paper No. 377)
Legalization and Immigrants in U.S. Agriculture, The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, Volume 10, Issue 1 (Topics), Article 7 (2010) (previous version: Stanford Center for International Development Working Paper No. 348)
Locational Choices of the Legal and Illegal: The Case of Mexican Agricultural Workers in the U.S., International Migration Review, Volume 43, Number 4 (Winter 2009): 850-880 (previous version: Stanford Center for International Development Working Paper No. 332)
Book Chapters
Hispanics and the Great Recession: Differences in Unemployment Rate Duration by Ethnicity and Race 2003- 2010 (with Harvey Cutler and Martin Shields), forthcoming in Hispanics in the U.S. Labor Market, Information Age Press
Remittances and Undocumented Migration, in The Encyclopedia of Global Human Migration, Wiley-Blackwell, 2013
Economics of Migration (with Steven J. Shulman), in 21st Century Economics: A Reference Handbook, SAGE Publications, 2010
Edited Volume
Policy Reform and Chinese Markets (with Belton M. Fleisher, Nicholas C. Hope, and Dennis Tao Yang), Edward Elgar Publishing, 2008
Other
Do Minimum Wage Laws Affect People Who Are Not Covered? Evidence from Documented and Undocumented, Hourly and Piece Rate Workers in U.S. Agriculture, Upjohn Institute Working Paper 13-194, Kalamazoo, MI: W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research, April 2013
Did the Great Recession Discriminate? Hispanic Unemployment Rate Duration 2003-2010, with Harvey Cutler and Martin Shields, Hispanic Economic Outlook, The Quarterly Report of the Hispanic Economic Outlook Committee, American Society of Hispanic Economists, Fall 2012
The Effect of Continuing Education Participation on Agricultural Worker Outcomes, United States Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration, Occasional Paper 2011-14, May 9, 2011
Economic Implications of Labor and Immigration Policy: The Case of Greeley’s Swift Plant (with Dawn Thilmany McFadden and Jessica Hernandez), April 2009 Agricultural Labor Report No. 2, Colorado State University, Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics – Extension
Agricultural Labor in Colorado: Has Recent Immigration and Labor Policy Resulted from Colorado’s Employment Trends? (with Dawn Thilmany McFadden and Jessica Hernandez), April 2009 Agricultural Labor Report No. 1, Colorado State University, Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics – Extension
Poverty Research Flash 2009-02: Poverty, Legal Status, and Pay Basis in U.S. Agriculture, West Coast Poverty Center, University of Washington, 2009
The Economic Contribution of Colorado’s Green Industry (with Dawn Thilmany, Jessica Hernandez, and Phil Watson), Green Industries of Colorado (GreenCO), 2008
Links
CSU-FTU Vietnam Economics Curriculum Project
Stanford Center for International Development
The National Agricultural Workers Survey
Updated: April 2013