Areas of Expertise
Alaina Barca is a community development research analyst in the Community Development and Regional Outreach (CDRO) Department. She supports research in topics that impact how communities develop and grow, such as the equity of property taxes and the neighborhood effects of place-based policies. This research helps to inform policymaking and increase equitable access to economic opportunities across the Third District and the nation.
Alaina was first drawn to economic research by studying an unlikely topic: divorce. Alongside researchers at Drexel University, she explored how student financial aid could incentivize divorce. Alaina was excited to learn how empirical evidence could reveal the unintended consequences of well-meaning policies and how it could be used to build more effective and equitable solutions to economic issues. She brings skill in the areas of analyzing large datasets and data visualization to the CDRO team. She has also supported the Consumer Finance Institute as an intern, during which she researched residential segregation, access to credit, and linking credit behaviors across generations.
Alaina has a bachelor’s degree in economics from Drexel University, with a concentration on mathematical economics. She also completed minors in business analytics and business administration.