Twisha Asher
Ph.D. Candidate in Economics
I am a PhD candidate in economics at the CUNY Graduate Center, and a full-time "postdoctoral" researcher in Health economics at Hunter College. My concentrations are in Econometrics, Labor Economics, and Economics of Human Resources.
Research
Much of my work pertains to household finances, and my current "post-doc" is in health economics. I am studying the effects of inheritances on family well-being, especially homeownership, while also working on the econometrics for a sepsis health intervention implementation grant from the NIH.
I have worked as a researcher at the Stone Center on Socio-Economic Inequality where I have, under the supervision of Dr. Salvatore Morelli, Director of the G.C. Wealth Project, built a cross-country and cross-state database (historical panel) on estate, inheritance, and gift taxes taxes. The structure of this panel is novel in tax literature, since there are no pre-existing datasets that contain multi-year and multi-country progressive tax schedules. This allows for more effective and meaningful quantitative analysis using a panel data structure. The variables contain comparable information such as relationship-specific exemptions for spouses and children, the number of years between gift tax exemption renewals, and schedules for upto three different classes of inheritors with different rates and/or exemptions. It also contains indicator variables for the first year that a country or state ever has any such tax, and qualitative notes containing information about caveats, deductions, and types of assets to which the tax applies, or the details surrounding the policy's enactment.
In addition to my work at the Stone Center, I work as a Substitute Distinguished Lecturer at Hunter College, where I teach ECO 321: Introduction to Econometrics.