Research

Working Papers

• Get Fit with MA? Estimating the Impact of Medicare Advantage on Physical Activity - Abstract

  Medicare Advantage (MA) plans increasingly offer fitness benefits yet evidence on their causal impact remains limited. Using fuzzy regression discontinuity design, we provide the first quasi-experimental evidence about the impact of MA enrollment on seniors’ physical activity. Linking nationally representative survey data on workout behavior with insurance records, we find that MA enrollment significantly increases vigorous workout days while no comparable effect is observed for Traditional Medicare (TM) which does not offer fitness benefits. Three robustness checks including placebo test, doughnut-hole analysis, and inverse probability weighting regression adjustments support the validity of our findings. The results highlight the role of structured insurance design in shaping health behaviors and indicate that fitness benefits in MA encourage more active lifestyles, offering timely and actionable insights for policymakers to promote healthy aging through targeted benefit structures.

• When Your Neighbor Joins the Gym: Causal Evidence of Physical Activity Spillovers from Medicare Advantage Enrollment - Abstract

• Where Seniors Sweat : Geographic Variation in SilverSneakers Uptake - Abstract

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Research Experience

Research Assistant, University of Washington
Evaluating the impact of the Fresh Bucks program on fruit and vegetable consumption in Seattle
Mar 2025 – Present

Researcher, Student Multidisciplinary Applied Research Team (SMART), Cornell University
Studied SME digital platforms and e-commerce; contributed survey data to
Exploring the Impact of Digital Platforms on SMEs (Advisors: Dr. Ralph Christy, Dr. Lin Fu)
Oct 2020 – May 2022