Faculty Sponsor: Professor Hornstein
Ava Regan
Ava Regan is a rising junior (’28) majoring in Economics and Hispanic Literature & Cultures, with a minor in Data Analysis. She calls Milton, Massachusetts home, a suburban town in the Greater Boston area. At Wesleyan, she writes stories on student alumni for the Athletic Department and plays on the club volleyball team. With a particular interest in finance, she plans to explore various career paths within the industry over the coming years.
Abstract: Since the late 20th century, U.S. government and disability organizations have invested substantial effort in increasing workforce participation among people with disabilities. Despite these efforts, past research provides limited evidence that disability acts and pledges have meaningfully increased employment for people with disabilities. However, if firms with strong disability hiring initiatives demonstrate superior financial performance, this could potentially incentivize companies to expand disability hiring programs. We investigate whether increased disability hiring leads to improved financial performance. Specifically, we employ a quasi-experimental shift-share model using firm and industry-level variables representing the disability fraction of the workforce to determine whether firm financial performance is significantly better, using two disability pledges as exogenous shocks.
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