ARE Ph.D. candidates Suvy Qin and Kaleb Javier receive IRLE Dissertation Fellowships
August 18, 2026
Suvy Qin and Kaleb K. Javier both received a Dissertation Fellowship Award from the Institute for Research on Labor and Employment (IRLE) at the University of California, Berkeley. The award supports rigorous interdisciplinary research projects on topics aligned with the institute's mission: to understand the dynamics and policies affecting workers, working life, and employment.
Kaleb received this award for his research addressing the economic and policy challenges related to environmental, energy, and agricultural markets. His work evaluates a sweeping minimum wage reform in immigrant agricultural labor markets across the United States. It seeks to answer how a visa-program minimum wage affects both the guest workers it covers and the domestic workers it is designed to protect. Specifically, he estimates the reform’s labor market consequences, evaluating its impact on employment and recovering the structural elasticity of substitution between H-2A and domestic labor.
Suvy's research focuses on how institutions and policies affect the production of local public goods in the US, with a particular emphasis on housing and environmental amenities. In her dissertation, Suvy examines the role of government capacity in housing regulations. Her project studies how bureaucrats' regulatory discretion in the permitting process affects the timely provision of housing.
