About

Taylor Jaworski is an economic historian, associate professor of economics, and interim director of the Benson Center at the University of Colorado, Boulder. He is also a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research. His research focuses on the United States in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, with particular interest in how economic geography influences regional development, the impact of regulation and industrial policy on market structure, and the role of human capital in labor markets.

Research topics

• Political Science
• Economics
• Business
• Geography
• Computer Science
• Social Science
• Sociology
• Market economy
• Development economics
• International trade
• Transport engineering
• Law
• Demographic economics
• Economic geography
• Economic growth
• Engineering
• Socioeconomics
• Economy
• Microeconomics
• International economics
• Operations research

Selected publications

• The Emergence of Regional Cultures in the United States

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2026-01-01

  preprintOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• The Emergence of Regional Cultures in the United States

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2026-01-01

  preprintOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Skill Formation, Child Labor, and the Schooling Consequences of the World War I Agricultural Boom

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2026-01-01

  preprintOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Skill Formation, Child Labor, and the Schooling Consequences of the World War I Agricultural Boom

  National Bureau of Economic Research · 2026-04-01

  reportOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  We examine how the World War I agricultural commodity price boom affected human capital accumulation during the early decades of the high school movement in the United States.First, based on newly collected county-level enrollment data, we show that enrollment and average daily attendance fell sharply at the peak of the boom.Second, using linked census data between 1910 and 1940, we find that greater exposure during teenage years reduced completed schooling by 0.27 to 0.47 years, with the largest effects concentrated in high school.For younger children, the net effect of increased household resources depends on local child labor intensity: the positive effect of higher parental income on completed schooling is offset in counties where child labor was prevalent.Our results are consistent with dynamic complementarities in skill formation whose effects on lifetime schooling are mediated by the opportunity cost of child labor.

  PublisherDOI

• The Emergence of Regional Cultures in the United States

  National Bureau of Economic Research · 2026-03-01

  report1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Did War Mobilization Cause Aggregate and Regional Growth?

  National Bureau of Economic Research · 2025-04-01

  reportOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  The participation of the United States in World War II led to a substantial mobilization of domestic resources to produce the materiel used on the battlefields of Europe and in the Pacific.We produce new estimates for the impact of war mobilization on long-run economic growth and regional development in the United States over the postwar period.Guided by an economic geography model, we interpret our estimates as the direct effect of mobilization on local productivity.The findings suggest the largest likely aggregate welfare impact was modest, although there is variation across region.In addition, industrial mobilization contributed to manufacturing growth relatively more in the Northeast and Midwest, and less in the South and West.

  PublisherDOI

• Economic Geography and Air Pollution Regulation in the United States

  Journal of Political Economy Microeconomics · 2025-03-14 · 1 citations

  article

  We develop a quantitative economic geography model with endogenous emissions, amenities, trade, and labor reallocation to evaluate the spatial impact of the leading air quality regulation in the United States: the National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS). We find that the NAAQS generate $40 billion in annual welfare gains, first-best emissions pricing would increase this by an additional $70 billion, gains are concentrated in a small set of cities, and improved amenities attract nonmanufacturing workers. Atmospheric transport of emissions, labor reallocation, and trade are first-order factors for quantifying the level and distribution of both costs and benefits of the NAAQS.

  PublisherDOI

• Did War Mobilization Cause Aggregate and Regional Growth?

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2025-01-01

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Did war mobilization cause aggregate and regional growth?

  Explorations in Economic History · 2025-05-21 · 3 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• How Important are Cultural Frictions for Internal Migration? Evidence from the Nineteenth Century United States

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2024-01-01

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Carl Kitchens

  94 shared

• Alex Hollingsworth

  The Ohio State University

  83 shared

• Ivan Rudik

  83 shared

• Bart J. Wilson

  Chapman University

  7 shared

• Erik O. Kimbrough

  6 shared

• Andrew Smyth

  5 shared

• Ian Keay

  Queen's University

  4 shared

• Sergey Nigai

  University of Colorado Boulder

  3 shared

Education

• Ph.D.

  University of Arizona

• M.S.

  London School of Economics

• B.A.

  George Washington University