Publications:
"Bailouts, Inflation, and Risk Sharing in Monetary Unions," The Atlantic Economic Journal, Forthcoming.
Abstract: This paper presents a new rationalization for bailouts of sovereign debt in monetary unions, such as those observed during the recent Euro crisis. It introduces a model where member countries of the monetary union are ex-ante identical, and each derives utility from consumption and disutility from the union-wide inflation rate. The union’s central bank is utilitarian and lacks commitment. Countries borrow or save in a market for nominal sovereign debt in response to idiosyncratic income shocks, with countries that receive positive income shocks saving and countries that receive negative income shocks borrowing. Ex post, the monetary union's central bank will attempt to devalue sovereign debt through surprise inflation, as this will redistribute income from rich creditor countries to poor debtor countries. Creditor countries choose to bailout debtor countries because bailouts will weaken the redistributive motives of the central bank and forestall surprise inflation. As bailouts in this environment constitute a payment from lucky creditor countries to unlucky debtor countries, they mimic a risk sharing arrangement that insures against income shocks. The payments made by creditor countries are incentive compatible due to the shared currency and inflation rate in the monetary union. This ability of countries to provide each other with incentive compatible insurance constitutes a novel theory of optimal currency areas. This insurance benefit of the monetary union is largest for countries with negatively correlated income shocks, in contrast to the classic Mundell-Friedman optimal currency area criterion.
"In-Kind Welfare Benefits and Home Production," Review of Economics of the Household, Forthcoming.
Abstract: Why are in-kind transfers a prominent feature of the U.S. social safety net, and why is such a significant fraction of these benefits given to individuals who do not actively supply labor in the market? This paper presents home production as a novel rationalization for such transfers. It first shows that in a standard Mirrleesian framework that include only market production, the optimal allocation features undistorted marginal rates of substitution between goods whenever agents are not working, and thus in-kind benefits provided to these agents do not help decentralize an optimal allocation. However, adding home production drastically changes the nature of the optimal allocation. In particular, if goods and labor are substitutes in home production and home and market productivity are positively correlated, in-kind benefits in the form of goods used in home production, such as groceries, energy, and housing capital, should be provided to agents who do not work. A numerical simulation shows that the optimal in-kind program for disabled workers in a plausibly calibrated version of the home production model is consistent with the scale of SNAP and other programs that provide home production goods in the U.S.
Working Papers
"Gender, Culture, and Anonymity: A Cross-National Analysis of Electronic Word-of-Mouths" with Steven Pittaro (TCNJ Class of 2019) and Linghui Tang (Under Review)
Abstract: Using online customer reviews of smartphones from eight countries, we explore the role of gender and culture in electronic word-of-mouths (eWOWs). Consistent with the socio-cultural theory for gender differences, we found that male reviewers provided lower overall ratings, posted higher satisfaction with functions of smartphones, and wrote shorter reviews in masculine and individualist cultures. Meanwhile, uncertainty avoidance and masculinity can moderate the relationship between gender roles and eWOWs through anonymous reviews. Our findings for female reviewers were mixed, indicating societal expectations of gender norms can create and reverse behavioral differences of gender simultaneously.
Draft Available Upon Request
In Progress
"The Impact of Small Win Probabilities on Favorite-Longshot Bias" with Jack Cassidy (TCNJ Class of 2020)
"Measuring Party Priorities Using Presidential Advertising Expenditure Data" with Trevor O'Grady
"De-unionization and Jobless Recoveries," with Zach Mahone