About
I am an Assistant Professor in the Department of Economics at Miami University. My research focuses on topics in macro, environmental, international, and public economics.
I earned my PhD in economics at Washington University in St. Louis in May 2020, after completing undergraduate studies at the University of Mannheim.
Published Papers
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Greener Thy Neighbor? On the Welfare Effects of Protectionist Climate Policy
Green protectionism can improve welfare when it helps sustain climate coordination at low distortionary cost. The welfare case weakens when protectionist instruments become too costly or are used too aggressively, creating a role for policy to limit excesses without eliminating the coordination benefits.
The world is witnessing a surge in green industrial policies, with prominent examples such as the U.S. Inflation Reduction Act incorporating significant protectionist elements. We argue that such green protectionism can play a strategic role in fostering international coordination on climate action. In a simple model combining a standard abatement game with a beggar-thy-neighbor game, we show that protectionist policies improve welfare when expected distortions are low, as they facilitate coordination on climate mitigation at minimal costs. When expected distortions are high, protectionist measures are not adopted and are effectively welfare-neutral. However, when expected distortions are of intermediate size, unregulated protectionist climate policies lead countries to rely excessively on distortive instruments, reducing global welfare. Our findings suggest that regulators like the WTO can enhance welfare by restricting but not entirely banning green protectionist measures. When countries are asymmetric, the case for differentiated regulation depends on whether asymmetries primarily affect countries’ incentives to coordinate on abatement or the social cost of using protectionist instruments to sustain that coordination. We further find that efforts to reduce uncertainty about the size of distortions might backfire, inadvertently encouraging coordination on costly protectionist measures.
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Tipping into Protectionism: Tariff Shocks and the Fragility of Free Trade
Temporary tariff shocks can generate trade-policy hysteresis: by reducing innovation and competitiveness, they shift political incentives toward protectionism and can move the economy into a persistent high-tariff regime.
This paper develops a dynamic political-economy model of trade-policy hysteresis. Tariffs reduce innovation and competitiveness but generate short-run benefits for import-competing sectors, creating incentives for myopic policymakers to adopt protectionism. The interaction between myopic protectionist policy and slow-moving competitiveness generates two stable steady states: a low-tariff, high-competitiveness regime and a high-tariff, low-competitiveness regime. Although free trade is welfare superior, it is politically fragile. Temporary tariff shocks that sufficiently erode competitiveness can permanently shift political incentives toward protectionism, trapping the economy in a low-competitiveness equilibrium with persistently high tariffs and lower welfare.
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The Common Currency Channel of Risk Sharing
A common currency can facilitate risk sharing by allowing central-bank-mediated financing of current account imbalances. During the Eurocrisis, this channel absorbed a meaningful share of country-specific output shocks.
Conventional wisdom holds that a common currency deprives countries of an important tool for responding to domestic shocks. This paper explores the extent to which a common currency can also facilitate cross-country risk sharing. I develop a monetary model in which asymmetric productivity shocks are partly smoothed through terms-of-trade adjustment and current account imbalances. When these adjustments are incomplete, the central bank can further promote risk sharing by refinancing current account imbalances through an uneven allocation of liquidity across countries. For moderate shocks, this redistribution does not interfere with the inflation target, while large asymmetric shocks create a trade-off between risk sharing and inflation. Applying the model to the 2008–2012 Eurocrisis, I document substantial central-bank-mediated financing of current account imbalances. I find that the common currency channel absorbed roughly one quarter of country-specific output shocks at a time when private markets and fiscal risk-sharing mechanisms were impaired.
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Has the World Become More Interconnected? Distance and GDP Comovements Over Time
Geographic distance predicted GDP comovement before 2000, but not afterward. The results point to a “death of distance” in business-cycle synchronization.
It is commonly assumed that the drastic decline in trade costs over the past century has made the world more interconnected and reduced the importance of physical distance. However, empirical gravity regressions show that distance continues to play an important role in explaining trade flows. We investigate whether physical distance has also continued to affect GDP comovements between countries: that is, is it still the case that neighboring countries are more likely to have synchronized business cycles than countries further apart? We show that, while geographic distance was a significant predictor of GDP comovements between 1955-2000, this effect disappears after 2000. Thus, we find evidence for the "death of distance" when it comes to GDP comovements.
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Did Shale Gas Green the U.S. Economy?
The shale gas boom reduced U.S. greenhouse gas emissions through coal-to-gas substitution, faster renewable adoption, and lower energy intensity. The evidence supports shale gas as a bridge fuel over 2007–2019.
Since the mid-2000s, hydraulic fracturing (’fracking’) has significantly altered the U.S. energy landscape through a surge in shale gas production. Employing synthetic control methods, we evaluate the effect of the shale gas boom on U.S. emissions and various energy metrics. We find that the boom reduced average annual U.S. greenhouse gas emissions per capita by roughly 7.5%. Drawing on the existing literature on the environmental impact of shale gas, we decompose this overall treatment effect into changes in the fossil fuel mix (the substitution effect), changes in the speed of the transition to non-fossil energy sources (the transition effect), and changes in overall energy consumption (the consumption effect). Our results indicate that the estimated treatment effect is attributable to an energy mix in which natural gas replaces coal, an accelerated transition to renewable energies, and a decrease in energy consumption, largely driven by decreases in energy intensity. Our findings highlight the role of shale gas as a ’bridge fuel’ for the U.S. economy between 2007 and 2019, an energy source facilitating the transition from carbon-intensive fossil fuels to cleaner energy sources.
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Global Spillovers of US Climate Policy Risk: Evidence from EU Carbon Emissions Futures
U.S. climate policy events spill over into EU carbon futures. Markets appear to price the expectation that EU regulators respond to shifts in U.S. climate policy.
International climate policy risk spillovers occur when expected changes to climate policy stringency in one country affect expected climate policy stringency in another country. We develop an event study procedure to identify such spillovers in emissions trading systems, specifically examining the impact from the United States (US) to the European Union (EU). Distinguishing between policy events likely to reduce US commitment to climate action (‘brown events’) and those likely to increase it (‘green events’), we find that the average brown US policy event is associated with an anticipated increase in future EU carbon permit supply, leading to a cumulative 7.1% drop in EU carbon prices over the event window. Conversely, green US policy events are linked to an expected decrease in future EU permit supply, resulting in a cumulative 4.7% rise in EU carbon prices. These findings suggest that financial markets anticipate EU regulators to align with the direction of US climate policy. Our results underscore the significance of regulatory risk spillovers in global climate policy coordination.
Working Papers
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Diversity Taxes: Linking Identity Expression, Social Contact, and Taxation
Identity expression externalities shape both private social contact and local tax policy. Greater openness to diversity can reduce demand for taxation while increasing visible identity expression and private avoidance.
The sociological literature suggests that within diverse communities, individuals create externalities on members of other social groups when they express identity through the consumption of market goods. Positive identity expression externalities lead individuals to increase their exposure to out-group identity expression, while negative externalities lead them to reduce it. At the same time, to the extent that identity expression is tied to market consumption, fiscal policy can influence how much identity is expressed by affecting individuals’ disposable income. We develop a theoretical framework in which identity expression externalities are addressed through these two channels: individuals privately adjust their social contacts to manage exposure, while local governments can use taxation to influence the visibility of identity in shared spaces. We study how these mechanisms interact, and how policy depends on which social group the government prioritizes and whether individuals react favorably or unfavorably to out-group expression. We find that governments amplify the behavioral response to diversity by adjusting the intensity of identity signaling through tax policy. We also show that greater openness to diversity can reduce demand for taxation, leading to more visible identity expression but also more private avoidance. The framework can accommodate a range of political-economy, fiscal, and institutional extensions.
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Forward Guidance and the Yield Curve
Forward guidance compresses term premia and weakens the yield curve’s recession signal. The model helps explain the post-2009 decline in the yield curve’s predictive power.
An inverted yield curve has traditionally predicted recessions by signaling market expectations of falling short-term interest rates. We document a structural break in June 2009 that weakens this predictive relationship. Using a New Keynesian model with Epstein-Zin preferences and stochastic volatility, we show that forward guidance compresses the term premium and flattens the yield curve. By reducing the risk households associate with holding long-term bonds, forward guidance dampens the response of yields to shifting economic conditions. The model replicates the decline in predictive power observed in the data, suggesting that forward guidance has muted the yield curve's informational content.
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The Curvature of Catastrophe: Collective Action under Tipping Risk
Climate tipping risk can support collective action only while the carbon stock remains below a behavioral tipping point. Beyond that threshold, countries may become locked into a high-carbon equilibrium.
I study how uncertainty about climate tipping thresholds shapes collective action. When the location of a tipping point is uncertain, perceived tipping risk responds nonlinearly to the carbon stock: the marginal benefit of mitigation rises as the stock approaches regions where tipping appears most likely, but falls once the stock moves beyond them. I show that this nonlinearity shifts mitigation incentives from strategic substitutes to strategic complements and generates multiple steady states separated by a behavioral tipping point. Physical tipping risk can incentivize effective collective action only while the carbon stock remains below this behavioral threshold. Greater scientific certainty about an imminent tipping point can weaken collective action by pushing the economy past this threshold and toward a high-carbon steady state.
Work in Progress
- Knowledge Spillovers and the Social Returns to Innovation
- Are Ideas Becoming Harder to Finance? Knowledge-Based Borrowing Constraints
- Trade Agreements and Cross-Country Comovements
- Forward Guidance, Financial Frictions, and the Costs of Policy Reversal
- The Pulse of the Euro: European Monetary Integration and Business Cycle Dynamics
Teaching
At Miami University I teach introductory macroeconomics (ECO 202), intermediate macroeconomic theory (ECO 317), and a graduate course on DSGE modeling (ECO 517). I have advised several MA theses in environmental economics.
Previously I taught Principles of Microeconomics (ECON 1011) and Mathematical Economics (ECON 493) at Washington University in St. Louis, and served as a teaching assistant at both WashU and the University of Mannheim.