Benji is a doctoral candidate in Wharton's Applied Economics program specializing in urban and environmental economics. His research includes studying how policies in the Western US requiring new development to pay water utilities to develop water-intensive housing leads to denser development in new communities, and how local income shocks in metropolitan areas induce gentrification and the subsequent mobility patterns in cities (joint with Fernando Ferreira and Jeanna Kenney). Other interests include how housing markets are related to school choice programs, and the effects of urbanization on local water quality. Prior to graduate school, Benji worked as a research associate at the American Enterprise Institute in the Housing Center. He researched riskiness in mortgage lending and the housing market origins of the 2008 global financial crisis which is published in the Review of Finance. Benji earned his bachelor's degree at the University of Souther California, majoring in Economics and International Relations.