CV

Download PDF

PhD Student in Applied Economics · University of Minnesota
matthew.hockert@gmail.com · matthewhockert.github.io · linkedin.com/in/matthewhockert

Education

PhD in Applied Economics, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN — September 2022 – Present

• Fourth-year student (2025–2026). Advisor: Elizabeth Davis.
• Fields: Labor and Population Economics, Policy Analysis.
• Research Fields: Land Use, Housing, Transportation, Public Finance.
• Methods: Spatial econometrics, causal inference (DiD, RD, IV), forecasting.

Master of Science in Applied Economics, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN — September 2020 – June 2024

• Graduate minor in Data Science.
  • Courses: Machine Learning Fundamentals, Principles of Database Systems, Theory of Statistics.
• Thesis: “A Spatial Approach to Agrifood Supply Chain Structure” (Advisor: Hikaru Peterson).
• Recipient of the UMN Applied Economics MS Thesis Award, 2024–25.
• Selected Paper Presenter at the Agricultural & Applied Economics Association (AAEA) Annual Meeting, 2023.

B.A. in Economics and Political Science, University of Minnesota Duluth — 2017 – 2020

• GPA: 3.7/4.0. Cum Laude. University Honors Program, Dean’s List.

Works in Progress

Dissertation Papers

• “Conservation and Externalities: The Effect of Conservation Easements on Neighboring Residential Parcels”
  • Staggered difference-in-differences design on 550K residential parcels to estimate the trade-off between lost tax capacity from easements and the market value spillovers from those nearby easements.
• “Transportation Changes Land Use: How the St. Croix Bridge Shaped Accessibility, Housing Values, and Travel Behavior”
  • IV–difference-in-differences design to estimate the impact of the St. Croix Bridge opening on access and how that access capitalizes into higher land and improvement values.
  • Written with Eric Lind at the Accessibility Observatory using in-house access data.
• “Rent Control Capitalization into Land Values: Evidence from New Jersey’s New Construction Exemption”
  • Triple-difference design on 2024 assessed values exploiting New Jersey’s New Construction Exemption, which permitted newly built 4+ unit buildings to be excluded from the city’s rent control ordinance.
  • I find a 54% land value premium and no effect on the buildings.
• “When Do Local Income Taxes Cause Residential Sorting? Evidence from Pennsylvania’s Piecewise Earned Income Tax”
  • Continuous stacked difference-in-differences on LEHD/LODES worker flows (2002–2019) identifying a causal effect from Pennsylvania’s piecewise local Earned Income Tax.
  • I introduce a binding decomposition that isolates the rate changes which move a worker’s tax bill, and find residential sorting away from binding municipal increases.

Additional Research

• “Restrictive Rules, Restrained Housing: Rent Control Policies and Their Local Impacts”
  • Developing an LLM-based algorithm to extract and classify rent control ordinances across 35 variables from municipal codes spanning 111 New Jersey jurisdictions.

Research Experience

Conservation Economist – Intern II, Hennepin County, Minneapolis, MN — June 2024 – Present

• Evaluated the impact of conservation easements and programs (Green Acres, Agricultural Preserve, Rural Preserve) on property values, tax burden, and neighboring parcels.
• Studied spillover effects on neighboring parcels, including shifts in housing values and tax liability from nearby conservation easements.
• Simulated conservation easement scenarios to estimate fiscal impacts and tax implications for municipal budgets.
• Used R, QGIS, and ArcGIS to analyze spatial patterns in conservation and tax policy effects on property values.
• Administered surveys and managed data using Survey123.

Graduate Research Assistant, Accessibility Observatory, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN — September 2022 – Present

• Developed a Python pipeline to ingest data from AWS, clean it, and produce weighted-average job accessibility measures from block to state level across the U.S.
• Built R scripts using OpenStreetMap network data and the R5 routing engine to calculate ambulance response and transport times to Level I–III trauma centers for every highway segment in rural Minnesota.
• Created public datasets on multimodal transportation accessibility (bike, car, transit) using Pandas and SQL.
• Built additional data pipelines for ad hoc deliverables for the Metropolitan Council and state Departments of Transportation.
• Developed an R Shiny application with Leaflet to display national job accessibility from block group to state level.

Data Science Intern, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, Minneapolis, MN — June 2022 – March 2024

• Built forecasting models (VAR, Kalman Filter) for macroeconomic stress testing, assessing bank resiliency against economic shocks.
• Converted Stress Testing production code from MATLAB to R following software development best practices.
• Built R Shiny applications incorporating predictive risk models to identify bank risk levels by loan and asset type.
• Investigated changes in rural banking quality and agricultural output in the Ninth District.
• Created an R Shiny dashboard using Census ACS and Federal Reserve data to compare county-level economic and banking conditions.
• Presented analysis of U.S. banking conditions under the CECL policy to examiners and supervisors.

Graduate Research Assistant, Foodshed – Agricultural Commodities Project, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN — September 2020 – 2022

• Examined regional food system resiliency during the COVID-19 pandemic using OLS and spatial regression models in R.
• Built a comprehensive dataset integrating Census and IMPLAN data.

Undergraduate Research Assistant, Bureau of Business and Economic Research, University of Minnesota Duluth — September 2019 – May 2020

• Performed local economic data analysis using IMPLAN, Excel, and SPSS.
• Cleaned and interpreted survey data in Qualtrics; co-authored publications on the university website.
• Contributed to literature review and public outreach for labor market research.

Presentations

• “Transportation Changes Land Use: How the St. Croix Bridge Shaped Accessibility, Housing Values, and Travel Behavior” — Transportation Research Board (TRB) Annual Meeting, Washington D.C., January 2026.
• “Transportation Changes Land Use: How the St. Croix Bridge Shaped Accessibility, Housing Values, and Travel Behavior” — Transportation Research Conference, Center for Transportation Studies, October 2025.
• “Calculating the Total Travel Time from Crash to Emergency Care in Rural Minnesota” — Transportation Research Conference, Center for Transportation Studies, November 2024.
• “A Spatial Approach to Agrifood Supply Chain Resiliency” — Selected Paper Presenter, AAEA Annual Meeting, July 2023.

Technical Skills

Honors and Awards

• UMN Applied Economics MS Thesis Award, 2024–25
• University Honors Program, University of Minnesota Duluth
• Dean’s List (2017–2020)
• Cum Laude, Economics Department Honors, Omicron Delta Epsilon

Professional Memberships

Agricultural & Applied Economics Association (AAEA)