Charlotte Kesteven is a senior policy analyst at the Center for Regional Economics at the Milken Institute. Her research is centered on regional economic development, infrastructure, and workforce. Prior to joining the Milken Institute, Kesteven worked as an economist at the Victorian Government Department of Treasury and Finance in Melbourne, Australia, where she advised the treasurer and other officials on education policy and workforce development issues. Kesteven has also worked as a consultant, conducting research in economic development, infrastructure, urban planning, and demographic forecasting for local, state, and federal government clients in Australia and New Zealand. Kesteven received her master's degree in economics from the University of New England (Australia) in 2015, where her research focused on the economic impacts of deregulation, particularly in relation to transportation industries. She also holds a bachelor's degree in international business from the Australian National University, majoring in international business and Spanish.

Abraham Song is a senior associate at the Center for Regional Economics at the Milken Institute and is concurrently the assistant professor of public policy at Pepperdine University’s Graduate School of Education and Psychology. Prior to joining the Milken Institute, Song worked at the DC Policy Center in Washington, DC, and at the Center for Regional Analysis at George Mason University. Song was also a postdoctoral researcher at the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University and a visiting scholar at the Robert H. Smith School of Business at University of Maryland. Song has published two peer-reviewed articles in the Small Business Economics journal on digital entrepreneurship and two white papers on the District’s tax incentives. Song has also contributed to policy analysis and research at the Kauffman Foundation, the Small Business Administration, and the Korea Trade Investment and Promotion Agency. His research was awarded the Provost’s Office Dissertation Fellowship, Wilkes Fellowship (DC Policy Center), Best Paper Award at the Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning, and the Vernon E. Jordan, Jr. Doctoral Fellowship (Economic Club of Washington, DC). He holds a BS in business administration from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, an MA in political science from the Middle East Technical University, and a PhD in public policy from Schar School of Policy and Government, George Mason University. He is fluent in both Korean and Russian.

Caroline E. Choi is an associate at the Milken Institute's Center for Regional Economics. Her research focuses on a wide range of international and domestic trade policy issues, including those related to supply chain and logistics. Before joining the Milken Institute, Choi was a consultant at Blue Water Thinking, LLC and a subcontractor to Booz Allen Hamilton on the VA Logistics Redesign Program Support Services task. Her work addressed the supply chain challenges within VA health care as it migrated its legacy supply chain system into a single, web-based application. Prior to that, Choi served as an associate at Flexport, an international logistics technology startup where she was responsible for analyzing a company’s end to end shipment life cycle. Choi holds a bachelor’s degree from Smith College, where she majored in government and minored in public policy.

Michael Cheng is an intern at the Milken Institute's Center for Regional Economics. He is currently an undergraduate student at the University of Chicago. Previously, he interned at the Small Business Advocacy Council.

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank our colleagues Kevin Klowden, Michael Piwowar, and Eugene Cornelius, Jr. for their ideas and input.