Research

Download my Curriculum Vitae. Visit my Google Scholar page. Visit the CMU Energy and Environmental Economics Lab.

Published and Accepted Papers

Blackouts: The Role of India’s Wholesale Electricity Market (with Louis Preonas (R) and Fiona Burlig). Conditionally Accepted at American Economic Journal: Economic Policy. NBER Working Paper No. 29610.

Externalities of Policy-Induced Scrappage: The Case of Automotive Regulations (with Connor R. Forsythe, Jeremy J. Michalek, and Kate S. Whitefoot). Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists (Volume 13, Number 2, January 2026). NBER Working Paper No. 30546.

Instrumental Variables Regression for Criminological Research (with Daniel Nagin). Annual Review of Criminology (Volume 9, January 2026).

The Impact of Air Pollution on Petcare Utilization (with Stephen Jarvis, Olivier Deschenes, and Alan D Radford). Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (Volume 122, Number 40, September 30, 2025). Grantham Research Institute Working Paper No. 412.

Polluting Public Funds: The Effect of Environmental Regulations on Municipal Bonds (with Steve Karolyi and Nick Muller). Management Science (September 24, 2025). NBER Working Paper No. 28210.

Carbon Rollercoaster: A Historical Analysis of Decarbonization in the United States (with Karen Clay, Joshua Lewis, and Edson Severnini). Journal of Economic Perspectives (Volume 39, Number 3, Summer 2025). NBER Working Paper No. 33983.

The Social Lifecycle Impacts of Power Plant Siting in the Historical United States (with Karen Clay, Danae Hernandez-Cortes, Joshua Lewis, Noah Miller, and Edson Severnini). Environmental and Energy Policy and the Economy (Volume 7, May 2025).

Start-up Costs and Market Power: Lessons from the Renewable Energy Transition (with Gordon Leslie). American Economic Review (Volume 115, Number 2, February 2025). Winner of the 2021 USAEE Best Paper Award.

Evaluation of the Winter Pollution Mitigation Policy in China (with Mengjia Ren). Economics of Energy & Environmental Policy (Vol. 13, No. 2, April 2024).

Can Forward Commodity Markets Improve Spot Market Performance? Evidence from Wholesale Electricity (with Frank Wolak). American Economic Journal: Economic Policy (Volume 15, Number 2, May 2023). NBER Working Paper No. 25851.

US Embassy Air Quality Tweets Led to Global Health Benefits (with Andrea La Nauze). Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (Volume 119, Number 44, October 24, 2022).

The Private and External Costs of Germany’s Nuclear Phase-Out (with Stephen Jarvis and Olivier Deschenes). Journal of the European Economic Association (Volume 20, Issue 3, June 2022, Pages 1311–1346). NBER Working Paper No. 26598. Winner of the 2024 Hicks-Tinbergen Award.

Regulatory Induced Risk Aversion in Coal Contracting at US Power Plants: Implications for Environmental Policy. Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists (Volume 9, Number 1, January 2022). Editor’s choice.

Considering the Nuclear Option: Hidden Benefits and Social Costs of Nuclear Power in the U.S. Since 1970 (with David Adler and Edson Severnini). Resource and Energy Economics (Volume 59, February 2020, 101127).

Does Environmental Policy Affect Income Inequality? Evidence from the Clean Air Act (with Peter H. Matthews and Nick Muller). American Economic Association: Papers and Proceedings (Volume 109, May 2019).

Economics and Externalities of Moving Crude Oil by Pipelines and Railroads: Evidence from the Bakken Formation (with Karen Clay, Nick Muller, and Randall Walsh).  Energy Journal (Volume 40, Number 1, January 2019).  NBER Working Paper No. 23852.

Handle with care: The local environmental costs of coal piles at U.S. power plants (with Nick Muller).  Journal of Environmental Economics and Management (Volume 92, November 2018).  NBER Working Paper No. 23417.

The superintendent’s dilemma: Managing school district capacity as parents vote with their feet (with Dennis Epple and Holger Sieg). Quantitative Economics (Volume 9, Issue 1, March 2018).

Does Environmental Policy Affect Scaling Laws Between Population and Pollution?  Evidence from American Metropolitan Areas (with Nick Muller).  PLOS ONE (August 9, 2017).

Working Papers

Dynamic Regulatory Distortions: Coal Procurement at U.S. Power Plants. Revisions Requested at Quantitative Economics.

Ride-Sharing the Wealth: Effects of Uber and Lyft on Jobs, Wages and Economic Growth (with Adam Koling, Daniel Armanios, and Jeremy J. Michalek). Revisions Resubmitted to Nature Cities.

Impacts of the Clean Air Act on the Power Sector from 1938-1994: Anticipation and Adaptation (with Karen Clay, Joshua Lewis, and Edson Severnini). NBER Working Paper No. 28962. Summary in the NBER Digest.

The Health Costs of Coal-Fired Power Plants in India (with Geoffrey Barrows and Teevrat Garg).

Selected Work in Progress

General Equilibrium Effects of Place-Based Renewables Subsidies (with H. Ron Chan).

Transmission Constraints and Electricity Trade in India’s Electricity Market (with Fiona Burlig and Louis Preonas).

The Market and Environmental Impacts of India’s Renewable Energy Expansion (with Fiona Burlig and Louis Preonas)