The Economics Department at Princeton University is pleased to welcome Kevin Dano, formerly a Postdoctoral Research Associate with the department, to the faculty as an Assistant Professor of Economics.

Dano’s research interests are in econometrics, with a primary focus on panel data and networks. His recent projects study dynamic discrete choice models and feedback in nonlinear panel data models (read more below). Dano earned his Ph.D. in economics from the University of California, Berkeley in 2024. He also holds a MSc in Economics from the London School of Economics and a Diplôme d’ingenieur from ENSAE ParisTech.

His recent working paper, “Transition Probabilities and Moment Restrictions in Dynamic Fixed Effects Logit Models,” introduces a new method to derive moment restrictions in dynamic discrete choice models with strictly exogenous regressors, fixed effects and logistic errors. Dano shows how the structure of logit probabilities and basic properties of rational fractions can be used to construct moment functions free of the fixed effects in a way that scales naturally with the lag order and the number of observed periods. Illustrating the results in an application investigating the dynamics of drug use among young people, Dano “demonstrate(s) the approach in binary response models of arbitrary lag order, first-order panel vector autoregressions, and dynamic multinomial logit models.”

In another working paper, “Functional Differencing in Networks,” with Stéphane Bonhomme of the University of Chicago, Dano and Bonhomme show how the functional differencing approach introduced by Bonhomme (2012) in the context of panel data, can be applied in network settings to derive moment restrictions on model parameters and average effects. Those restrictions are valid irrespective of the form of heterogeneity, and they hold in both dense and sparse networks.

“I am thrilled to officially join Princeton Economics,” said Dano. “I feel privileged to have such exceptional and supportive colleagues, and inspired to be in a department that has made such an impact on the field. Looking ahead, I’m excited to continue growing as a scholar in this fantastic community.”