Dr. Grooms Research Lab

Housed at Howard University under the Center for an Equitable Economy & Sustainable Society

The Economics Lab, led by Dr. Jevay Grooms, Associate Professor of Economics at Howard University and a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research, serves as the applied research and policy-design hub of the Center for an Equitable Economy & Sustainable Society (E²S²). The Lab brings together faculty, students, community partners, and policy practitioners to use rigorous economic evidence to address complex societal problems. Its work is organized across three interconnected domains: Health and Sustainability, Asset Inequality, and Crime and Criminal Justice.

Our Research Lab has 3 core research areas.

Health and Sustainability

Health and Sustainability examines how economic conditions, public programs, employment, and environmental factors shape individual and community well-being. Research addresses health-care access and coverage, Medicaid, opioid use and treatment, aging and dementia, mental health, and the sustainability of health and social-support systems. Through initiatives such as Medicaid projects, Opioid Policy Tools (OPTIC), and aging and dementia research, students evaluate policies, analyze disparities, and develop strategies to improve health outcomes.

Asset Inequality

Asset Inequality investigates the forces that shape wealth accumulation, financial security, land ownership, housing stability, and intergenerational mobility. Students examine how precarious employment, unequal access to assets, heirs’ property, housing pressures, and legal structures contribute to persistent racial and economic disparities. Projects focused on precarious workers and mental health, Black land loss, and heirs’ property combine research, community engagement, and policy analysis to identify ways to protect assets, expand opportunity, and help historically underserved communities build and retain wealth.

Crime and Criminal Justice

Crime and Criminal Justice applies economic analysis to public safety, legal institutions, enforcement, and the unequal consequences of criminal-justice policy. Researchers consider how housing conditions, neighborhood investment, social services, policing, courts, and regulatory systems shape exposure to crime and contact with the justice system. Research on Washington, D.C., housing-code violations, for example, demonstrates how administrative policies may affect neighborhood stability, public health, displacement, and legal vulnerability. The domain seeks approaches that promote prevention, accountability, safety, and equitable treatment.

Student mentorship is central across all three domains. With structured faculty guidance, students formulate research questions, review scholarship, analyze data, apply quantitative and qualitative methods, and communicate findings through papers, presentations, and policy briefs. By linking evidence production, student development, and community-engaged problem-solving, the Lab prepares socially conscious researchers and translates economic analysis into actionable solutions that advance equity, sustainability, and the well-being of historically underserved communities.

2025 - 2026 Graduate and Undergraduate Research Fellows

Blog Posts

Return on Investigation: How a Crime-Fighting Tool Became a Community Burden, (written by Payton Garcia)

In December 2006, Washington D.C. police arrested Anthony Hardy and seized $127 in cash from his person. Three months later, prosecutors dismissed his case entirely. The Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) kept the money anyway and never told Hardy he could fight to get it back.

Hardy was not alone. Over a six-year period, D.C. police seized a total of $2.9 million from roughly 9,000 residents under a legal process called civil asset forfeiture, with a median seizure of just $120 per person. Many of those residents, like Hardy, were never charged with a crime. Most never saw their money again. This post examines civil asset forfeiture in Washington D.C. what it is, how it operated, who bore its costs, and what a decade of reform has, and has not, changed.

Read the full Blog HERE

The Color of Displacement in DC: Tracing the Historical Displacement of Black Washingtonians through Barry Farms (Ward 8) in Southeast D.C., (written by Raven Shaw)

The Barry Farm Dwellings in Southeast, D.C. are currently being demolished as part of a large redevelopment project, marking yet another moment of displacement for a historically Black community in Washington, D.C. While the city has framed the project as a mixed-income redevelopment that will include new housing, retail space, a community park, and a cultural center preserving Barry Farm’s legacy, the demolition reflects a deeper and recurring tension between redevelopment and community stability.

The history of Washington, D.C. is deeply tied to both community building and the displacement of Black Washingtonians. Displacement occurs when residents are forced out of their homes due to external political, economic, or institutional forces, and this pattern has shaped much of D.C.’s development. What was once affectionately known as “Chocolate City”, boasting a Black population of 71.1% in 1970, is now only 48% as of 2015. Though many neighborhoods reflect this trend, the Barry Farm community in Southeast D.C. offers a particularly revealing case in illustrating how public and private housing development practices have systematically displaced Black residents.

Read the full Blog HERE