About

Justin G Marion is a Professor in the Economics Department within the Social Sciences Division. His research interests include public economics and empirical industrial organization. The Economics Department is part of the learning and research community within the Social Sciences Division, and Marion's work contributes to this academic environment. His expertise and research focus are centered on understanding economic phenomena through empirical methods, particularly in the areas of public economics and industrial organization.

Research topics

• Business
• Marketing
• Political Science
• Finance
• Environmental health
• Environmental protection
• Advertising
• Operations management
• Medicine
• Environmental chemistry
• Environmental planning
• Engineering
• Economics
• Environmental science
• Law
• Ecology
• Biology
• Chemistry

Selected publications

• Data and Code for: Socioeconomic Disparities in Privatized Pollution Remediation: Evidence from Toxic Chemical Spills

  ICPSR Data Holdings · 2026-04-01

  datasetOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Replication code and data accompanying the research article.<br><b>Article Abstract:</b> Governments often privatize the administration of regulations to third-party specialists paid for by the regulated parties. We study how the resulting conflict of interest can have unintended consequences for the distributional impacts of regulation. In Massachusetts, the party responsible for hazardous waste contamination must hire a licensed contractor to quantify the environmental severity. We find that contractors' evaluations favor their clients, exhibiting substantial score bunching just below thresholds that determine government oversight of the remediation. Client favoritism is more pronounced in socioeconomically disadvantaged neighborhoods and is associated with inferior remediation quality, highlighting a novel channel for inequities in pollution exposure.<br>

  PublisherDOI

• A Bid Strategy for Earlier Payment: Evidence and Implications of Front-End Loading in Procurement

  National Bureau of Economic Research · 2025-03-01

  reportOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Liquidity management is key in industries with variable cash flows.We study how businesses in the highway construction industry manage cash flow by strategically bidding more on work with an earlier payout-a practice known as front-end loading.We find that small contractors, infrequent bidders, and Disadvantaged Business Enterprises front-end load more intensely, indicating a stronger preference for earlier payment.An equilibrium bidding model highlights a novel pathway through which this preference can affect procurement and its managerial and policy implications.

  PublisherDOI

• A Bid Strategy for Earlier Payment: Evidence and Implications of Front-End Loading in Procurement

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2025-01-01

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Socioeconomic Disparities in Privatized Pollution Remediation: Evidence from Toxic Chemical Spills

  American Economic Journal Applied Economics · 2024 · 6 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Environmental science
  • Environmental planning
  • Environmental protection

  Governments often privatize the administration of regulations to third-party specialists paid for by the regulated parties. We study how the resulting conflict of interest can have unintended consequences for the distributional impacts of regulation. In Massachusetts, the party responsible for hazardous waste contamination must hire a licensed contractor to quantify the environmental severity. We find that contractors’ evaluations favor their clients, exhibiting substantial score bunching just below thresholds that determine government oversight of the remediation. Client favoritism is more pronounced in socioeconomically disadvantaged neighborhoods and is associated with inferior remediation quality, highlighting a novel channel for inequities in pollution exposure. (JEL D63, J15, K32, L51, Q53, R23)

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Why Did Firms Practice Segregation? Evidence from Movie Theaters during Jim Crow

  The Journal of Law and Economics · 2022 · 7 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding
  • Political Science
  • Business
  • Marketing

  Racial segregation by businesses during Jim Crow was often voluntary and practiced without a legal mandate. Voluntary segregation can be driven by profit-motivated business owners catering to racist white customers or discrimination by business owners. We assess the relative importance of customers’ and firms’ discrimination by examining the 1953 desegregation of Washington, DC, movie theaters, which occurred rapidly because of a Supreme Court ruling affecting only businesses in Washington. Using weekly data for a nationwide sample of theaters, we find that revenues of Washington theaters fell relative to other theaters, consistent with reduced demand from biased white customers. We use a test for firms’ discrimination based on a model of the screening decision for films with black actors cast in prominent roles. We cannot reject that the run length of these films was profit motivated. Together, our results point toward customer discrimination as a primary cause of public accommodation segregation.

  PublisherDOI

• Do Accelerated Payments for DoD Contractors Help Small Businesses

  2021

  Senior authorCorresponding
  • Business
  • Operations management
  • Finance

  Acquisition Research Program Sponsored Report Series

  Publisher

• Residential segregation, discrimination, and African-American theater entry during Jim Crow

  Journal of Urban Economics · 2018-09-26 · 12 citations

  articleSenior authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Tax compliance and fiscal externalities: Evidence from U.S. diesel taxation

  Journal of Public Economics · 2018-03-07 · 12 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Replication data for: Affirmative Action Exemptions and Capacity Constrained Firms

  ICPSR Data Holdings · 2017-01-01

  datasetOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  This paper studies how affirmative action exemptions in public procurement can improve efficiency and government expenditures without harming disadvantaged business enterprise (DBE) utilization. I examine a unique program employed by the Iowa Department of Transportation, where prior to 2013 prime contractors were allowed an exemption from a project's affirmative action requirement if their history of DBE utilization was sufficiently high. I find that prime contractors use the exemption to smooth demands on capacity constrained DBEs, building a history of utilization during low demand periods and exploiting the resulting exemption during high demand. The exemption policy was unexpectedly eliminated in 2013, which I exploit to evaluate its effect on DBE utilization and procurement costs. I find that average DBE utilization was unchanged and bids rose on affirmative action contracts.

  PublisherDOI

• Affirmative Action Exemptions and Capacity Constrained Firms

  American Economic Journal Economic Policy · 2017-07-31 · 12 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding

  This paper studies how affirmative action exemptions in public procurement can improve efficiency and government expenditures without harming disadvantaged business enterprise (DBE) utilization. I examine a unique program employed by the Iowa Department of Transportation, where prior to 2013 prime contractors were allowed an exemption from a project's affirmative action requirement if their history of DBE utilization was sufficiently high. I find that prime contractors use the exemption to smooth demands on capacity constrained DBEs, building a history of utilization during low demand periods and exploiting the resulting exemption during high demand. The exemption policy was unexpectedly eliminated in 2013, which I exploit to evaluate its effect on DBE utilization and procurement costs. I find that average DBE utilization was unchanged and bids rose on affirmative action contracts. (JEL D22, H76, J15, J16)

  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Erich Muehlegger

  University of California, Davis

  11 shared

• Joel Slemrod

  University of Michigan–Ann Arbor

  7 shared

• Ricard Gil

  EAE Business School

  6 shared

• Wojciech Kopczuk

  Columbia University

  5 shared

• Nathaniel Brandt Baum-Snow

  University of Toronto

  2 shared

• Jesse M. Cunha

  Naval Postgraduate School

  1 shared

• Jeremy West

  University of California, Santa Cruz

  1 shared

• Robert W. Fairlie

  1 shared