Research
New Working Papers
"A Dynamic Model of Authoritarian Social Control," April, 2024.
Abstract: Authoritarian regimes often use targeted social control - unequal application of the law to limit expressive freedom and enforce social conformity. At the same time, their methods appear less draconian than in the past. In this model, an authority structures punishments and rewards to compel adherence to its preferred norm. The authority's commitment is time-limited and depends on imperfectly informative signals of a citizen's behavior. Given two citizens with the same observed behavior, the authority imposes harsher punishments on the poorer and/or ex ante dissident individual. Lighter punishments are imposed on the wealthier citizen to prevent "overcompliance." Wealth inequality increases over time. Some citizens become prosperous "lackeys" while others become destitute from confiscation. In stable regimes with high state capacity, the authority reduces punishments and/or increases rewards to allow citizens to accumulate wealth, leading to social conformity and balanced growth in the long run. In unstable regimes with low capacity, the citizenry splits into groups of wealthy lackeys and destitute proles.
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"Power, Property Rights, and the Dynamics of Local Wealth Appropriation," with Dan Cao and Yingqi Xu, December, 2023.
Abstract: This paper examines the dynamic connections between local wealth inequality and the local politics of property rights within a federal system. We model a jurisdiction comprising a politically dominant in-group and a marginalized out-group. At each date, the jurisdiction tries to redistribute claims on productive assets. The out-group can legally challenge any changes to the status quo by appealing to its due process rights of possession (ROP). Nevertheless, the jurisdiction exploits weaknesses in the legal system to systematically redistribute property claims away from the out-group and toward the in-group. It combines takings and zoning restrictions with the leveraging of public assets to deter legal challenges. We examine how this leverage varies across time and depends on status quo effects and primacy of certain assets under the ROP. Our results highlight the role of local political economy as a source of systemic wealth disparities in the U.S.
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"Carbon Consumption, the Carbon-Based Ecosystem, and Output," with C. Figueroa, R. Harrison, and M. Miranda, April, 2020.
Abstract: This paper studies the effects of the carbon-based ecosystem on a country's output. We propose and estimate a dynamic game production model in which a country's ecosystem, as measured by its reservoir of carbon in land biomass and soils, is a productive input. This reservoir is diminished when higher levels of greenhouse gas concentrations reduce land sink absorption of atmospheric carbon. In equilibrium, a country's land carbon policy accounts for its direct effects on the ecosystem and on diminished land sink as GHG concentrations increase.
We first estimate land sink absorption rates and the output elasticities of land use and the land carbon ecosystem for 152 countries. Calibrating the model to these estimates, we simulate the model to 2100 under four standard Representative Concentration Pathway scenarios.
In the simulations, all countries experience higher average annual GDP growth under lower GHG concentration scenarios. The growth differentials between high and low scenarios are starkest for more developed countries. When compared to a counterfactual constant sink model, the "active" sink makes little difference in low concentration scenarios, but decreases global GDP growth by around 1.3% per year over the next 80 years in the highest scenario. Again, the differences are most pronounced in developed countries.
Some Recent Publications
"Status Quo Property Protection in Politico-Legal Systems," forthcoming in American Economic Review: Insights, 2023.
"The Dynamics of Property Rights in Modern Autocracies," with Dan Cao, forthcoming in American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, 2022.
"Optimal Collateralized Contracts," with D. Cao, American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, 12:45-74, 2020.
"Tipping Points and Business-as-Usual in a Global Commons," with R. Harrison, Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, 163:386-408, 2019.
"Dynamic Mechanism Design for a Global Commons," with R. Harrison, International Economic Review 58: 751-82 , 2017.
"Auditing, Disclosure, and Verification in Organizations" with L. Anderlini and D. Gerardi, Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, 131: 393-408, 2016.
"Revealed Political Power," with J. Bai, International Economic Review, 54: 1085–1115, 2013.
"Communication and Learning," with L. Anderlini and D. Gerardi, Review of Economic Studies, 79(2): 419-450, 2012.
"On the Faustian Dynamics of Policy and Political Power, with J. Bai, Review of Economic Studies, 78: 17-48, 2011.